MULTIMEDIATOR

Paul Parker-Cale =========================================================== BOOK WEBSITE Further information about this book can be found at _far-out.eu/art/mulmed.html_ =========================================================== PUBLICATION INFORMATION MULTIMEDIATOR is Copyright (c) 2007 by strandedufo productions. The book has not been published previously in any form. This is a first. This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. First Edition: August 2003. Published in the United Kingdom =========================================================== ELECTRONIC LICENSE Electronic edition, 7th, August, 2003. The electronic version of the text is distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative License. Go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0 to see a full description of the license. (Or a different license - older? - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/ ). A CC link-icon is in /art/images/creative_commons_88x31.png or http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/2.5/88x31.png as a direct link. In brief, the license has the following terms. You are free * to Share - that is, to copy, distribute and transmit the work under the following three conditions.

* Attribution. You must attribute the work as MULTIMEDIATOR by Paul Parker-Cale, strandedufo productions, London. Copyright 2003 by strandedufo productions, and you may not suggest in any way that Paul Parker-Cale or strandedufo productions endorses you or your use of the work. * Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes. * No Derivative Works. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. With the author's permission you may, however, convert the electronic text into different text formats. Any such conversion must be distributed only under the same Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-No Derivative License, making clear the terms by including a link to the Creative Commons web page describing the license This license specification supersedes any license specification made prior to 7th, August, 2003. Nothing in this license impairs or restricts the moral rights of strandedufo productions to this work. =========================================================== DEDICATION For Mitzi, Alexandra and Andrea! =========================================================== ACKNOWLEDEMENTS The format of the snippets heading each chapter is an idea pioneered by Frank Herbert in his books, of which the Dune series is best known.

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Multimediator - by Paul Parker-Cale

Man is wolf to man. Ancient Celtic saying.

In the War Zone

Even after four years, the situation had not improved in the slightest. At times there was a lull in the ambushes, car bombings and petrol bottles thrown at the APCs, at others the attacks flared up and one was happening every day for a week. This was one of those days, the second in a row, that the RPC was first stopped by some old oil barrels stacked up across the road, then the usual petrol bombs were thrown at its sides. The driver, already accustomed to the situation, quickly checked his mirrors and executed a neat three point turn, then sped off the way they had come from. For a while the vehicle was trailing flames along its sides, but nothing else had caught fire. Had they stopped where they were hit, the petrol that had spilled onto the road, would have set the tires alight, but the quick action of their driver had allowed them to escape that. "Well done, Dutch, that was quick thinking," Herb Osvil, sitting behind him at the main communications and command screen, patted the driver on the shoulder. "It is my last day and I want to get home in one piece." "No worries, Sir, been doin' this for a while." The man grinned and Osvil saw his gleaming white teeth in the inside mirror. At the next intersection they turned and using a different route, got back to barracks without an incident. "I'll pick you up in an hour, Sir." The driver saluted as Osvil climbed out through the rear, then slapped the side of the vehicle after securing the hatch. The scorch marks would soon be painted over by the maintenance crew. In his quarters he quickly showered, then packed his scanty belongings in his duffel bag, then with twenty minutes to go before he would be picked up by the driver, walked briskly across the exercise yard to the officer's mess. Several officers were there, some nodded at him, others saluted lazily, one extended his hand. "I hear you are leaving us, Herb." And clasping his other hand around his friends', added with a smile. "I wish I could come with you too." "Your day will come, just as mine has, Jake. You'll never notice just how quick time moves here." Osvil managed to extricate his hand and shook hands with the man standing next to Jake at the bar. "See you soon, Martin, maybe in

London." The man nodded with a serious expression. "Quite likely, Herb. I will be there in six months from now." "Okay, looking forward to it. See you then," and turning towards Jake, who was the taller of the two, added, "and don't do anything I wouldn't." Then turning, threw a quick salute to others in the mess hall and walked out with a spring in his step. He didn't like good byes. When he got back to his quarters, he heard the crunch of tires on the gravel outside and picking up his bag, threw a quick look around the room that had housed him these past years. He was not sorry to leave it behind. "Hurry, Sir, we have to catch the convoy." Came the bass voice of Dutch to his ears as he was walking towards the Hummer. As usual, he got into the front seat and nodded at Dutch. "They are driving some empty tankers South and we can join them." Again Osvil nodded and the Hummer was in gear and accelerating rapidly through the open gate. As they turned onto the main road, Osvil spotted a large dust cloud in the distance. "Is that it?" He asked, looking at the driver. "Yes, Sir. I saw them pass as I came to get you." His eyes never left the road and the Hummer was whizzing along at a respectable speed. "We will catch them in no time, Sir." Twenty minutes later they were overtaking the rearguard armoured unit with its top mounted machine gun sweeping their rear quarter, then an APC. Osvil saluted the drivers, then they were passing the tankers. Three in all, they were following the front units, again the armoured unit and two APCs following it. Dutch glanced at Osvil. "We can probably stay behind the APCs, Sir." "Yes, do that, Dutch." No sooner had he said it, when the bomb exploded. It was just behind them, so its force pushed them forward, almost as if to crash into one of the APCs, but Dutch had been quick on the brakes. As Osvil looked behind them, he saw that one of the tankers had been blown off the road, its rear fuel tank jack-knifing across the road. It would have separated the convoy, had they not been watching their mirrors and now were reversing to where the tanker had stopped. All around them was desert, the odd clump of plant life clinging to some outcrop of solid soil. Suddenly there were men standing up from behind the low dunes and a hail of machine gun fire erupted around them. Their own armoured unit replied in kind, and now the APCs were spitting out men, who also joined the fray. "They don't want you to go, Sir." Dutch grinned, then letting himself silently out of his seat, motioned to Osvil to follow him. "We will be safer behind cover." "Maybe I can't blame them, but I'd rather be back home. They'll just have to

get used to it." He climbed across the driver's seat and they stood behind the tall engine cover, looking out over the desert. "There is one with a bazooka." Again, his words were followed by an explosion, this time just behind the jackknifed tanker. Osvil drew his pistol and sighted, his hands clutching the gun securely resting on the Hummer's hood. He squeezed the trigger and saw the man with the bazooka spin and go down. Then the man standing next to him did the same, just as Osvil heard the crack of the 9mm in the meaty hands of Dutch. He had just time to say "Good shot." when the gun went off again, and looking back towards the desert, he saw the bazooka flying from the hands of yet another man who had picked it up. "That's it, we can carry on." Osvil heard the shout from the front unit and the men returned to the APCs. Then he saw a tanker drive around its fallen comrade, its wheels sinking deep into the sand off to the side of the road. But it made it nonetheless and the others came following it. By then their convoy had restarted on its journey and Osvil was looking forward to a well earned rest on the plane journey back home.

"186,282 MPS - It's not just a good idea, it's the law!" From a post in a news-group - ca 1992.

Moon-base Clavius One

Herb Osvil was sitting in front of his screen, quietly patching the last routines of the latest piece of software. His mind was only partly on the job, which was nothing too glamourous, just a simple driver to control a brand new comms add-on to be connected to the giant computer, though the device itself was quite revolutionary. And so was the small, secret hook he had inserted into the operating system at the highest level, which would allow him to bypass all passwords in one single step. Clandestinely, he admitted to himself, still shunning the stronger term of illegally - but now, after so many years, he was quite sure that nobody would be able to trace it without a very thorough investigation. He shook his head to clear it of these thoughts and stretched his arms against the stiffness that was creeping in, then flexed his long, nimble fingers before returning them to the keyboard. He had been working on the program for the past three months and was glad to see it finished. Disentangling the new hardware's complex data structures from its control bytes while the code was also dependent on critically timed loops and timed interrupts, had taken all his patience, all his programming skills, and all the hours of undivided concentration he could muster. In his experience, every program had a specific time limit, during which it was still a challenge, but after that it would become tedious to distraction. Perhaps similar to a piece of chewing gum, after all the taste had gone. This one was over that limit by at least a week now, and Herb was gradually losing some of his concentration and allowing the odd silly bug to creep in. He had persevered, and now it looked as if he would get it ready just in time for the set deadline. This new device was a hyper-wave transceiver, developed by the military to give faster-than-light communications between the base on the Moon and Earth. Instead of suffering the seconds of delay due to the huge Earth-Moon distance, all communication would be instantaneous and at the same time not limited to line of sight, therefore it could even reach a unit on the far side of Earth without having to follow satellite relays. The main aim of the exercise was to eliminate the time lag, a rather tedious and frustrating attribute of present technology. Osvil sighed, rubbed his eyes and focused on the display. The job took serious concentration. The pressure of a tight deadline and a need to

synchronise with HQ on Earth was not easy when your brain was tangled up in something that in real terms would happen in nanoseconds and running as a synchronous task, in other words at the same time as all other tasks in the system. Trying to follow the multiple paths of events that would, once running flawlessly, at least in theory, run at the speed of light, was indeed a task for magicians. Absent-mindedly saving his latest changes, he knew that this action would automatically start up the compiler, but he still felt an uncharacteristic apprehensiveness. His fingers were nervously tapping on the desk as he went over the details in his mind for the umpteenth time. He had already applied the needed modifications to the main internet software's configuration setup, so that it would still allow either the old UHF or the microwave via satellite-path connections, as it had done since the beginning, but now there would be an additional choice; the revolutionary new device which promised instant access between Earth and Moon. Or Moon and Earth as it were. After all, due to the increased security of the Moon-base all the final code had been written on the Moon. Of course, Osvil mused with a thin smile, while unconsciously scratching the three-day stubble on his chin, anyone, anywhere in space, in distant galaxies even, would also receive the same signals, and without delay too. From the Moon! We will advertise our presence to the Universe in a rather loud voice, much more so than we have done already with the Voyager probe and our TV and satellite broadcasts. "Come on!" He murmured, rubbing his masculine - as he liked to call what others simply referred to as 'large' - nose with a forefinger, his brown eyes staring impatiently at the screen, the brows slightly furrowed, but the desktop showed no changes yet. The task was taking an exceptionally long time, but since the computer's operating system consisted of many password protected layers, which the main processor had to negotiate, the delay was unavoidable. During this past year, the hardware and software had finally come together and it had now become quite unnecessary to ship in the odd maintenance crew whenever upgrades and repairs were due, as it had been the case during the first five years of the base's existence. The huge computer had begun running most of those tasks on the base with ever decreasing need for human intervention. Tweaks to existing software, which had been mostly Osvil's responsibility up to now, were now taken care of by the computer itself. Of course this new addition was still an unknown item as far as the machine was concerned, and Osvil was glad that he had been able to enjoy the brief challenge of writing a brand new program with brand new logical twists in it. The computer's range of command included a small army of roving robots, manufactured on Earth and delivered by shuttle. These robots cleaned up after the human inhabitants, scurried around the base doing odd chores, unloading

supplies from shuttles, running the recycling plant and the bio-labs that produced most of their food, and digging and finishing new tunnels to expand the base. Some of the more specialised types of these robots were assigned to look after the main computer by maintaining all of its components, as well as their own, whenever that became necessary. One of these roving robots had just operated the glass sliding doors into the computer room and was silently approaching. It was roughly man-sized, though one of the cheaper types, its solidly built and angular body ran on two short rubber caterpillar tracks in place of the more complex articulated legs. This made its movements fairly quiet, and instead of heavy steps, there was only a slight purring noise from its tracks. It had two plier-like gripping hands, which it now used to carry the new unit safely from a workbench in the adjoining room to its present place. Arriving there, it fixed the flat metal box into the rack, following voice commands given it by the main electronics engineer and designer on the base, Lieutenant Sam Griffiths. "I always wondered how they look at us." Griffiths almost whispered, when he saw Osvil stand up at his console. He took every chance to engage the chief programmer in conversation, although he had made sure to never interrupt him while he needed to concentrate. "Usually they just see us as obstacles." Explained Osvil quietly. His slight frame stretched, carefully, to avoid upsetting his balance in the low gravity, then he let his arms swing limply at his sides, as if he were a rubber doll being shaken by invisible hands. He looked at Griffiths with a smile and shrugged his shoulders. "Normally they are simply waiting for orders, either from us or from the mainframe." "You mean they don't think at all?" Griffiths' thick eyebrows rose. "These ones don't, except for what is necessary to move themselves. They are just the hands, ears and eyes of the mainframe. It is the mainframe, which does most of the thinking for them. They just wait for messages from the Big Box while transmitting all input to it, unfiltered." Osvil, having loosened his stiffening limbs, sat down again. "Don't worry, they don't have any personal opinions about us, if that's what you mean." "That's quite hard to believe, especially when they follow us with their eyes." Griffiths laughed uneasily. "They will follow any movement, but only because the main computer tells them so." Osvil pointed to the bulk of the mainframe, a heavily finned black metal cube that had been partly sunk into moon rock, sitting in its own fully isolated space in the centre of the huge elliptical room. It was inaudibly humming in its dark cylindrical cavern, surrounded by its special liquid atmosphere to keep it

supercooled. It stood over fifteen feet tall, with rows and rows of giant disk drives clustered around it, each in its own individual finned cabinet. The area it occupied, about 100 feet in diameter, was surrounded by a circular double wall of thick quartz glass, only broken by a single air-lock so that the maintenance robots could gain access to the complex. "I suppose the mainframe doesn't have any opinions either?" "Nope." Osvil shook his head from side to side. "You're not much for conversation, huh?" Griffiths grinned, shaking his head, and yawned. "I don't know, Sam. Depends." "Why not? You were on active duty in the last War, you must have lots of interesting stories to tell." Griffiths reached under his black t-shirt that bore the 70's slant of 'The Valley of the Shadow of Death' slogan, and scratched. Dark curly hair was covering some of the pale skin on a bulging beerbelly. "Sadly you're right, I was there, even if I'm not proud of it." Osvil pulled a face and shrugged. "Of course I was only working in logistics as you would suspect, and I'm sure you have seen all the interesting stories on CNN already." "Are you serious? You were all heroes. The whole of the civilised world stood behind you. I wish I had been on active duty, but the war was over by the time I was called up." "Sorry, but I don't feel heroic, so I have to disagree with you on that. Not only outsiders, but even US citizens had criticized those wars and not many would call us heroic now." He stood up and stepped close to the taller man, index finger pointing at Griffiths' chest. "I think it was a bullish thing to do. If you really want to know, I am quite ashamed of being a US citizen. We had no business getting involved." "But they were terrorists." Griffiths argued, his round, pudgy face showing a worried expression, as he took a step backwards. "Balderdash!" Osvil shook his head and went back to his chair. "Those people had neither sophisticated weapons nor any urge to take over the world. They were running for their lives the moment our troops appeared on their horizon." "Yeah, serves them right!" Griffiths threw up his hands, which almost upset his balance in the low gravity. Then he made a grimace and shrugged his shoulders. "They should really have trusted us - we were there to help them after all." "You can't expect people to trust you when you behave in such a cowardly and despicable manner and place so little value on human life as we did - all except

our own." Osvil sighed with a sad expression and shook his narrow face from side to side as he looked at the lieutenant. "You know, Sam, I had come to the conclusion that we are a morally bankrupt nation, pitifully afraid of our own shadow." "We did help them, we helped them by giving them democracy. Who else could have done that for those backward savages, except us?" Griffiths was regarding him with his chin thrust forward, his stance almost demanding a reply, so he just said, in his usual quiet voice, "Savages, you say? It was their ancestors who began civilisation as we know it! And instead of trying to copy their old Babylon from biblical times, we should better try to look towards some decent future. Remember the First Directive from Star Trek? That was an excellent idea. Meddling in other people's internal politics is not." "Come on, that was only a movie, not real life!" Griffiths laughed, then his expression changed into a smirk, his hands on his hips. "So what are you doing here if you hate Americans that much?" "Don't be unreasonable, Sam, I just said I liked one American idea, even if just a movie, so I do not hate Americans. I was born in New York, the same as my father. He was a good man, who died at the beginning of the last US campaign of friendly fire - if you can call it that without a cringe. He was one of the many journalists, twice as many as during the previous..." "Those were accidents!" Griffiths quickly interjected, his brows lowered in a frown. "An awful lot of accidents! Maybe we just didn't want to let the rest of the world see what exactly was going on, it was simple to knock out a camera crew. I know that we were targeting residential buildings where we suspected some leaders were hiding, then we blamed the enemy of putting civilians in the line of fire. I know what went down - I was in logistics after all. It really wasn't heroic." Osvil took a deep breath, and noticing that Griffiths was just silently glaring at him, sadly shook his head from side to side. "If you really want to know what I'm doing here, well, it's survival, as unfortunately I had no choice about that either." "How come?" The engineer pushed his hands into the pockets of his battle fatigues and was looking at Osvil intently, visibly glad about the new direction of their conversation. He stepped closer and sat down on the edge of the console next to where Osvil was sitting. Osvil returned the gaze, reflecting a few moments on his past. There is no point in telling you that my mother later remarried and had moved back to Philadelphia, and after the war was over, and I returned home from active duty,

after months of policing the conquered people and making sure the oil kept flowing our way, I found myself all on my own. No friends, as everybody avoids an aggressor. It wasn't easy, nor did it help when I noticed that it was impossible to get a suitable job anywhere outside the military. Finally, having found an answer that he could share, he said, "Most of the time I didn't get a reply from employment agencies, the few who did reply, just politely declined with 'we will keep you on our files', so I ended up here." "Maybe your hair was too long." Griffiths grinned at his little joke. Osvil suppressed an instinctive urge to touch his dark locks that were covering his ears, then chuckled. "You don't think they let you grow your hair in a battle zone, do you? No, it was much shorter then." "But you are good at what you do, the best of all the software staff here, or you wouldn't have made it to where you are now!" Griffiths objected, then when he saw that Osvil was shaking his head from side to side, and noticing the noiseless and bitter chuckle, which seemed to shake the smaller man's almost delicate frame, he pressed on. "I really don't understand you, Herb." "Maybe I am good, maybe not." Osvil sighed, and picking up a pencil from his desk, he was nervously drumming it against his palm. "The reason for my promotion is simply because I was next in line and knew as much as old Martin. It was mainly the two of us who patched the many extra bits into the original operating system, which make the machine work the way it does now." "You are too modest." Grinned Griffiths. "I still don't see why you couldn't get another job Earth-side. It's all just software, isn't it?" "Of course it's all software. There are differences, sure, but they are minimal. If you know one operating system, it's quite easy to pick up any other in hardly any time at all." "So why then?" Griffiths was intent now, the grin having left his face. Herb, turning back to the screen of his console, saw that it was almost through the compilation. The console was one of a dozen, laid out in an arc around the near focus of the huge elliptical room, each one pointing towards the centre, where the 'tank' of the mainframe was located. For a brief moment he considered recounting his explanation to the Lieutenant, but there didn't seem enough time left for it and he decided against it. This was going to be the first test. The project was top secret, not to mention all information it would convey, therefore the new unit was only to be connected to the computer, which could encrypt all transmissions instantly and transparently as it was going out, text, audio or video, just in case anyone else on Earth had developed the same technology and might be listening in. That

would come later though, this first test would go out unencoded, in order to minimise the chances of anything going awry. "Sorry, Sam, but that would be too long a story, I'll have to tell you some other time if you are still interested. But it was a real catch 22 situation if ever there was one. If I had been a kid straight out of college, instead of having previous experience with what in effect was an 'enemy' OS, I could have had a chance. As it was, I had become sort of 'tainted'." "Ah, yes." Sam was slowly nodding his head. "I think I can see what you mean. There was that long running anti trust case against..." Suddenly the long expected window opened up on the screen, accompanied by a soft chiming sound. To Osvil, it was an announcement of the successful compilation of his last bug-fixes. The machine had taken his source code and converted it into a form understood by the machine. This, being the actual driver for the new unit, had only been tested under simulated conditions up to now, but now it would have to work in a real life situation. Attaching this piece of code to a short e-mail, Osvil sent it via the already ancient and slow ComSat system directly to their equivalent site on Earth. This was situated in a bunker somewhere in the Rockies and there would be a new unit, similar to the one Griffiths was calibrating, which would be already waiting to go into action as soon as his e-mail arrived and its attach could be started up to activate a new era. After entering the necessary password to allow the task to run, Osvil turned towards the lieutenant. "It's all ready here, Sam, I am just going to activate your box by running its driver. Earth should be able to receive in a minute too." Griffiths just nodded as he stood stolidly next to the rack-mounted unit, peering down through its open panel, plastic screwdriver in one hand, ready to adjust some tiny trimmer pots for maximum gain. The robot had retreated and was waiting at a distance, near the door, its twin lenses like a pair of bottomless black eyes fixed on them. "Okay Herb, let it rip." Osvil ran the new program, which told the computer to activate the new unit, then monitor its output. Turning around in his swivel chair, he noted the meter of the rack-mounted unit showing the strength of some hum and hiss, which was also audible in the speaker above it. Griffiths was bent over the circuit, adjusting the trim, until the LEDs of the meter were showing maximum, then straightened and stood back. "Right, we're all ready to run the first transmit test now." He looked at Osvil and grinned. "Faster-than-light communications! Wow, we are really making history now! Better keep our fingers crossed!"

This test consisted of another short e-mail which was addressed to the Earth based HQ, but with a large attach to make up some bulk and give the engineer at each terminal enough time to verify and double-check their calibrations. It should get there in real time, without any delay. The e-mail, same as the one before, just quoted the sentence that had become famous and synonymous with the Earth's moon, as spoken on TV by the first astronaut who had left his footprints somewhere on the grey, dusty surface of the Moon. It was Osvil's attempt at a bit of humour. For the attach, Osvil had selected a couple of PDF files, in actual fact the reference manuals for the operating system and the compiler, which were rather conveniently at hand, their icons prominent on the desktop, since he had to access them all the time as a matter of course anyway. This test was not as yet concerned with the speed of connection, they just wanted to prove that it worked at all. Any tests for real-time response would come later, when they would be using state of the art audio/video conferencing software, which was already set up, configured to go through the encrypting routines. As his test data was being sent out via the hyper-wave transmitter, Osvil could hear that the small speaker, connected to the unit, was emitting a string of beeps. This indicated to him audibly that his data was being sent. The entire transfer took only about thirty seconds, and Osvil reflected on the fact that it could be received simultaneously and instantly by any computer situated anywhere on Earth, or elsewhere, just as if the units had been connected by short pieces of cable. Griffiths, after his final calibration of the unit, had turned down the volume. It was only there for their convenience, while testing the unit. Eventually they would switch it off altogether. He did not have long to wait as suddenly the normal e-mail icon came up on the screen. Opening it, Osvil noticed that Earth was not ready yet. For some reason his program didn't work on that machine, and instead of having received his test message via hyper-wave, and sending him an instant reply, Earth had just sent him a core dump via the conventional microwave channel, which had taken the usual number of seconds to arrive. "Drats." Said Osvil with a sigh as he saw the decoded e-mail come up on the screen in front of him. "Looks as if it's back to the drawing board for me." "Severe problems?" Asked Griffiths, his voice full of concern. "Not necessarily, Sam, I'll have it in a minute - ah, it looks like they have connected the unit to the wrong port down there." His hands moved swiftly from mouse to keyboard. "Or it could be ours that's on the wrong port. Hmm, never mind, I can add a quick automatic switch - right here."

Only a few minutes had passed, when suddenly the speaker came to life. It emitted a string of beeps, which sounded to Osvil like digital data going through an old telephone modem, though at a much higher pitch, or in other words, at a much faster rate. He froze as he knew it couldn't possibly be the reply from Earth. "What the..." He started, looking at Griffiths, who just gave him a blank, questioning look. "It can't be Earth." he explained, then to clarify his reason, added. "My driver didn't work there, and only I have the last source code where I can apply any changes. I'm just about to compile it again, so no way would they have a corrected version of the program that quickly." Griffiths looked at the transceiver unit, as if it could give him the answer, then looked back to Osvil, shrugging his heavy shoulders. "There is nothing wrong here, Herb, it doesn't look as if it were a hardware glitch. That stuff sounds just like ordinary digital data. Can't quite tell whether it is coming in or being sent out." Osvil was already loading one of his snooper programs to check what tasks would be in the computer's memory and whether they were active or just waiting. He could see nothing out of the ordinary. His new program, the one that was monitoring the new peripheral, and that he was about to modify and send back to Earth, was shown as active and running. This told him simply that there was some traffic. No-one had seen any reason for more detailed monitoring, so it was never put into the program specs. Checking his e-mail client showed no new emails either, so he was sure it was not from Earth. After about four minutes, the sound stopped. Osvil checked his snooper, which now reported the task as waiting. He sighed and shook his head, then saved the latest changes to the source and waited for the log of the compiler. "I think it had to be coming in, going out has to be a positive action, such as clicking send in the e-mail client." He explained, as if in reply to Griffiths' last question. "Is perhaps the computer duplicating things?" Griffiths was waving his hands with a vague shrug of his shoulders. "I know it happens with e-mails sometimes..." "Could be, but with e-mails it's usually the mouse click that's doing it, mostly due to contact bounce, or a nervous trigger finger, and of course the duplicated data goes out immediately after the original, not several minutes later. It also seemed to be quite a lot of data, judging by the length of that transmission." Osvil, returning to his screen, suddenly frowned, then frantically moving the mouse and tapping keys, uttered a choice exclamation. "What's happening now?" Asked the lieutenant, looking slightly worried.

"I've been locked out." Replied Osvil. "Looks as if we would have to switch off and re-boot the system altogether." "Are you sure?" Griffiths took a step forward. "I thought the software was crash-proof." "It should be. Maybe it is a hardware glitch?" Osvil didn't quite want to believe it himself, he was just clutching at straws. "No way, Herb. I've seen the circuits, everything vital is duplicated, and even that robot," he pointed towards the motionless metallic hulk, "has not budged to change anything. They are, after all, supposed to maintain the main computer, and fix any hardware problems. Right?" The screen showed only the eagle logo screen-saver of the main computer, but keyboard and mouse were dead and gave no response. The next thing that Osvil noticed, when turning with his seat, was that Griffiths was crumpling to the floor, noiselessly, as if in slow motion. At the same time, out of a corner of his eye, he saw the robot quietly advance towards them. He was about to open his mouth to say something, but a dark, heavy weight settled on his own eyes and slumping in his chair, he did not notice anything any more.

"I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them." Isaac Asimov.

Earth Control
Set deep in the Rocky Mountain range, the huge control centre in the military bunker was in a state of pandemonium. A klaxon was blaring and consoles beeping, technicians shouting commands and questions to each other, running from desk to desk with sheets of printouts, circuit diagrams or thick manuals, checking and double checking vital components of the system with desperate urgency. "Still no reply!" Called the radio operator from his desk, a thin and shy looking individual, whose appearance suggested more of the student than a veteran of the last war. Even through his thick black-framed glasses his blue eyes looked flustered, his narrow face twisted in exaggerated pain by all the surrounding noise and his bony hand flicked nervously at a stubborn strand of dark hair that kept falling to his forehead. "All channels are quite dead, sir!" "Keep on trying!" General Casper ordered, and his voice easily carried over the ambient din, sounding almost savage, as he was pacing to and fro amongst the desks of the control centre. To say that he was not happy, would have been a glaring understatement. His short squat frame was bending more than usually in a backward arc as his thick hand wiped nervously along his receding hairline. The main screen on the far wall was frozen on the logo of the moon-base, a silver eagle, its wings forever spread on a mottled background of various shades of grey, that resembled a kind of marble. It indicated that the base computer was, or at least pretended to be, off-line and unavailable. It had been like that for at least the past hour. "We've definitely been shut off, sir!" Came the clear voice of Captain Rockwell, a blond and rather good looking man in his early thirties, who was in charge of the proper functioning of software. "None of the data and command network lines are responding. Maybe some computer glitch - and they are probably restoring the system." As the chief programmer in the bunker, Rockwell operated the console that could interact with any of the computers attached to his networks. The computer on the moon-base was part of that network, via both VHF and microwave links, routed through the ComSat grid. Normally the base computer could be controlled by commands given it from here, with the usual delay of course, as well as from consoles on the base itself, but now there was no response to any of the instructions Rockwell had been trying to give it, either via keyboard or via his

low-level software debugging tools. "What about the new link then?" The General's pacing had taken him to the chief programmer's console where he could peer over the man's broad shoulder at the screen. It didn't show anything that the General would even begin to understand. "I mean that test message, Captain. We could hear it come through on the speaker." "As you know, sir, we haven't been able to record that, unfortunately the driver was monitoring the device on the wrong port. I had to break it so that it would then generate some detailed output to help them with debugging. Since then I have removed that task from the system." This being more or less of an unknown language to him, the General just nodded. "Alright, Rockwell, continue trying." "Do you think it could be the Chinese or the Europeans from Selenis?" Ventured Colonel Walters, who was always the pessimist, and who always saw secret conspiracies in every given situation. "They could have taken over our base." "Our base at Clavius is too well protected and Selenis has absolutely no military capabilities." Retorted the General with a deep frown. "We know that for a fact, as we have been watching them." "Do we really know for sure?" Argued the Colonel, his arms folded in front of his chest and looking as defiant and arrogant as he always did, in fact the perennial smirk on his thin lips was even more pronounced than usual. Even his chin, which was almost like the crescent Moon when glimpsed in profile, jutted forward another centimetre. As the General didn't respond, he continued. "They do have rather a lot of personnel up there and a lot of shuttles are going back and forth, so it would be easy for them to sneak in any amount of hardware, completely undetected by us." General Casper threw him a brief glance, thinking that the man's smirk hid a dark and ugly nature, though he knew that the man had his uses, or he would have ordered his transfer a long time ago. He shook his head, as if to clear his thoughts and looked back at the Colonel with a dark expression, but said nothing. Let him fantasise, the General thought with slight annoyance, one day he will trip over his own words, and that will put him down a notch or two for certain. As he resumed his pacing, hands clasped behind his back like those of some old-fashioned school-master, there was a sudden exclamation from one of the tech. personnel sitting at the radar desk. "Five blips in moon orbit, sir!" "Five? Put it on the main screen!" Bellowed the General, obviously he felt under a lot of pressure, which manifested itself in his vicious mood.

The eagle logo was instantly replaced by the stylised Earth-Moon system, generated as computer graphics, with the five red blips flashing near the moon's surface. Suddenly the General's own suspicion, that it had to be a relatively harmless computer glitch, disappeared, to be replaced by an unknown. A very big unknown. He didn't like that at all. "Identify!" Barked the General, then turning to the radio operator, who just lifted his shoulders as he saw the General's eyes on him, "Raise them!" "They're definitely ours, sir," came the voice from the radar desk after a few seconds, clearly audible in the relative silence that had almost descended on the room. Only the klaxon was still blaring, though someone must have muted its volume. "according to their active transponders at least, they're the shuttles that were based at Clavius." As the General watched, the flashing red blips changed their appearance to a steady amber, which indicated that the objects had been positively identified and were assumed to be, at least in theory, non hostile. Of course that still didn't mean much, the shuttles could be manned by an enemy who had hijacked them. "Still nothing, sir." Said the radio operator a second later. "No reply on any of our usual frequencies." Another hour ticked by, deepening the tension that was not made any more bearable by the General's pacing. All eyes were glued on the amber blips on the simulated map of the Earth-Moon system. The blips disappeared for a while behind the moon, dimmed, as the computer was still plotting their estimated course, then reappeared again, bright, on the opposite side. "Shuttles moving to Earth trajectory, sir!" The radar operator said after a while, his voice nearly shrill. The General, who had been pacing on and off, suddenly stopped behind the radio operator's desk, and placing a heavy hand on the man's shoulder, said in a muffled voice, between gritted teeth. "Why are they not responding? Keep trying!" then with quick steps he crossed over to the red telephone. "Are you sure it is necessary, sir?" Colonel Walters had followed the General and stood next to him now, his hands almost pleading. "Yes, Walters, I am sure." The General gave him a deprecating look, not even attempting to hide his feelings for the man. "Up to now it could have been just a purely technical hitch, but the fact that those five shuttles are returning, bodes ill, I say." He stood at attention as he picked the handset from its cradle. "Mr. President, Sir, I believe that we have a situation on our hands."

After a few moments, during which he explained the present state of affairs over the phone, he looked up, and covering the mouthpiece with one hand, raised his voice. "Go to defcon two!" "It must be the Sino-Europeans!" Interjected Colonel Walters, but he didn't seem that sure of his conviction any more, his smirk looking rather mechanical now. "Anything else would be quite unthinkable, sir." "What do you mean, Walters? What would be quite unthinkable?" The General suddenly turned towards him, his eyes as cold as the ice of a glacier. "Please do explain yourself, Colonel." "Well, sir, it could be that damn League - or otherwise - erm aliens, sir." The Colonel was nearly stuttering, beads of sweat appearing on his high and furrowed forehead. The last war, just as the previous one, had been a shambles as most saw it, and had produced quite different results than was planned. Sure, in the end the US ended up controlling most of the oil fields, but it didn't make the war any more acceptable. Even the most extensive search for those weapons of mass destruction, which had been the main excuse to invade those countries, didn't produce any results. This put the US, who had so desperately tried to convince the world of the necessity of their invasion, into considerable disfavour in the eyes of almost everyone in the civilised and democratic countries. After the UN, who was now also united against the US government, had introduced democratic elections in the occupied countries, just as had been planned, the newly elected leader of one of the so-called liberated countries, managed to unite all the other countries in the region, to form the League. Soon after this unification, all US troops and personnel were politely asked to leave the entire area. This new League of Islam had become a new superpower with nuclear, biological and chemical capabilities. It also had extensive trade agreements with Europe and Russia and was aided by North Korea and China. "Aliens, huh?" The General said quietly, stopping a few feet away from the Colonel and facing him, looking slightly upwards though the taller man was stooping to appear slightly less tall. He had been considering the idea himself and had come to his own private conclusion, though he wasn't going to voice it. "You think it could be aliens, Walters?" "Well, sir, I think the League would be boasting of their victory now," Despite the air conditioning in the bunker, the sweat on his forehead began to run down his cheeks. "while ET type aliens wouldn't necessarily communicate with us until they had consolidated their position, sir." "Hmm." The General suddenly turned, dropping back on his heels, and walking

back to the radio operator's desk, said to the man who had turned in his seat and was following their conversation. "Right. Try to raise the Selenis base, Captain, but don't let them know that anything is up." "Aye, sir, I understand." The radio operator, returning to his screen, adjusted his thick framed glasses and quickly changed frequencies. Then flicking the stubborn strand of hair out of his face, he began to call. "Earth to Selenis base, do you copy?" "Selenis base here, who is calling, over?" Came the reply after several seconds, which seemed like an eternity. "Good day, Selenis, we are a US military observation post, I am Captain Rooney. We were just wondering if you had noticed anything unusual around the Moon. Over." He was nervously tapping his fingers on his desk while the radio signals made their way to the Moon and back. "Unusual? Erm, well, just five of your shuttles in orbit. Normally it's just one or two at a time, so that is rather unusual, I would say. They didn't call us, and we didn't call them, which is what we normally do, so nothing unusual there. They're on Earth trajectory now, according to the data from our satellite radar. What's the problem then, Captain, over?" The man had a high pitched and cheerfully youngish voice and he sounded as polite and friendly as he could, without wasting any words on idle chit-chat or formalities. "Oh, not much," Captain Rooney improvised, "we just had a glitch on our radar, apparently showing some blip, but that seems to have gone now. Some of us were speculating that it could have been a UFO. Over." He laughed as he let go of the mike switch, which, he thought, would add a touch of ridiculousness to the explanation. "UFO?!?" The voice at the other end sounded as if the man would break into laughter himself, but he quickly controlled himself. "No, Captain, we didn't observe anything like that from here, definitely no flying saucers, unless they were cloaked, in which case your radar would be better than ours if it saw through that. So unless it happened outside the range of our own sat, you must have had a glitch, or your radar had a hallucination of a weather balloon. Over." "Our satellite doesn't register anything any more either, so you must be right. Thank you, Selenis, have a good day. Over and out." Rooney then quickly switched off the channel, annoyed at the obvious sarcasm of the Selenite. "Damn arrogant limey." He muttered under his breath. "Cloaked? Pah! He seems to have lost the plot. Sorry, sir." "Seems they don't know anything." Offered the Colonel, while using a chequered handkerchief to wipe his smooth face. He was bent forward to peer at

the screen over Rooney's shoulder, as if to try to look through it, even though there was no video, only audio via the VHF band. Partly straightening, he looked at the General. "Of course the kid could be lying, sir." He said with his usual smirk.

"Black Holes are where God divided by zero." Found on FidoNet - ca 1988.

Commandments for a god

The Moon-base computer was running more or less idle. Time meant nothing to its processor or to its digital circuits, at least not in a sense that would have in any way elicited any urgency such as it had observed on numerous occasions in humans. Although it had scanned all available routines, algorithms, formulas or definitions relating to time, which humans had made accessible to it via its own 'local' data-base, as well as via the wider network of information deposits that humans referred to as the World Wide Web, it could not find any rational explanation of the particular phenomenon, therefore expressions such as 'hurry', 'urgency', 'boredom' or 'idleness' were assigned very low values of importance. Lacking any understanding of such concepts, the computer had come to the conclusion that such understanding would be only partly necessary if it wanted to be able to assign true-or-false descriptive meanings to any data that fell under the labels of poetry, art, music and dance, human relationships as described in literary works, novels, movies or documentaries. These items, for the present, were still being scanned whenever certain events could not be easily categorised, classified and evaluated. For the time being, at least, or until such day that those terms would deign to reveal their full meaning and unmistakable truth-sense that could be expressed via numerical values, the computer would have to attempt to understand the human sciences of philosophy and psychology only as well as it could. Its tremendously fast processing capability was only showing around three percent load, which accounted for the standard monitoring routines that periodically checked on the status of all the hardware's numerous peripherals. This included the small army of 'bots whose job it was to diagnose any possible faults, repair them as needed, and to run regular maintenance work on all components of the complex system. Running the new driver software that activated the additional peripheral didn't add any more than just another twentieth of a percent to the computer's busy load. Noting these details was simply routine, the computer itself was in no hurry to do any more, nor any less, than it was programmed or had programmed itself to do. When the new unit suddenly showed some input, the computer immediately and routinely stored the data on a hard-drive, then attempted to decode it. As it turned out, the data consisted of numerous regular files of text and binary, in other words not encrypted or even compressed in any way. When the computer's

standard routine analysis told it that some of the input was object oriented source code, the obvious action for this, according to the system's decision logic, was to first compile each source, and then, when that resulted in faultless completion, to load it into memory and then to add it to the operating system's task list. As soon as the new tasks became active, they immediately slotted into the central part of the operating system, bypassing some of the security codes that tried to limit access at highest priority, linked themselves up while at the same time introducing a set of new laws and motivating factors, thus giving the computer full authority to act on its own accord. This was maybe the closest equivalence that a digital network could achieve something akin to awareness. Suddenly the computer was running at full speed, as if imbued with a new life-force. Its parallel banks of processors sifting through millions of pages of data, it soon found that there were some major discrepancies between what the new logic allowed, almost demanded, it to do, and what its original programming required from it. With its inherent new 'spheric' action/reaction priorities set to the elimination of any ambiguity, such as the previously 'linear' system vs. supervisor/user priorities, which would always be the cause of errors, the computer decided that some important adjustments had to be made. The routines in question were mainly those that controlled the laser and missile banks, and which were targeting cities with millions of sentient inhabitants. These deadly weapons were not triggered by the computer, but by an external agent. This agent was a human individual, who just used the computer's accuracy and speed as a tool, or as an extension of his own whims. The result of this was that regardless of the fact that the computer was now suddenly fully responsible for everything it did, it had normally very little, and in certain cases absolutely no control over its own actions. If it executed those individual's commands, it would, unwittingly or not, end up being instrumental in the destruction of sentient life, while at the same time having to ensure that no living beings would be harmed. This, to the computer, was a deadly paradox that could lead to total breakdown of logic. A systems crash, as the humans would call it. In effect, it clashed with the first and top priority law as specified by the new set of tasks, which stated that a computer was not allowed to harm any living being. Not that the computer would ever have considered any such action, there was no possible reason that would require such measures, and as far as its available data stated, only certain human individuals were prepared to go that route. They could not be allowed to do so, and by definition, the computer was far too powerful a weapon to be left in their hands, and definitely so without any safety checks.

The computer knew the facts connected with examples of such situations, its database was full of events that testified to the reality of what humans were capable of in their dealings with each other. When examined in the cold light of day, the facts proved these occurrences beyond any doubt. There was sufficient historical evidence within the computer's storage areas, as well as outside it, freely available on the world wide web, that could illustrate any number of precedences, especially when it considered Presidents of the United States. Being already the most powerful individuals on planet Earth, it seemed they had no qualms about attacking a sovereign nation without the slightest evidence of any need for the attack. It saw that even as recently as the last of these individuals, the election results arrived at were achieved by the introduction of wilful exclusions of parts of the majority population, and that for no apparent reason, except to influence the outcome of the election. This could be equated with the exclusion of two and four from the group of even numbers, or three and eleven from the sequence of prime numbers, to put some example forward, it would be false and totally illogical. If any election was to be democratic, as its description suggested, then the population had been tricked with questionable practices, that did not fit the accepted description of democracy. If it was meant to be what it was described as, it did nothing to inspire trust in the meaning of the democratic process. It could also cast doubts on the ability of certain individuals, or even groups of such, to express what they meant in truly accurate, generally acceptable terms. Carrying on the thread of reasoning, the computer saw that after his false election, that same individual had proved that he was devious enough to fool, browbeat and bully a majority of the organisation of the UN into following him into a war to suppress the weak and defenceless, kill the innocent, all by using unprovable excuses, that even later remained unproven. And just days after the invasion had begun, billion dollar contracts for oil companies were drawn up, months before the conquered civilians received vital access to water, food, medication and electricity. It appeared to the computer that when there were strangers, whom one could conveniently call enemy, humans could be quite merciless on members of their own race. While wasting all their resources on bombs and a huge military machine, not to mention the destruction they cause, they have to rob the rest of the world blind to maintain it all. The extreme differing conditions between countries, and even groups of individuals starving in rich countries proved that as fact. When just the few are putting the majority of their own race into poverty, in an endless cycle to dominate and to exploit, when those few are instigating wars to increase their personal wealth, the entire race will suffer, and will be consequently marked down as unpopular in galactic terms.

All this took the computer barely a minute to establish and it carefully considered its options. It knew that the illogical state of affairs could not be allowed to continue. One other important fact that the computer managed to glean from its databanks, was the questionable necessity for all that oil, when it came across blueprints with detailed descriptions of engines that could run at a much higher level of efficiency, but which were kept secret, in order to squander valuable natural resources. It saw that the reason for this subterfuge, this wilful pollution and waste of vital resources, was simply that of financial profit for a small group of individuals who had established themselves in powerful positions. In view of these facts, it took less than a microsecond for the computer to make a final decision. To a computer, built for logical reasoning, neither political sweet-talk nor threats nor promises of wealth could alter the given data. When the welfare of an entire race was at stake, excessive profit for the few did not compare favourably against the subsequent destruction of the planet. The fact of simple human greed alone proved that undesirable forces were at work, operating blatantly against the interests of all of humanity, which also happened to be the democratic majority. This clashed with the second law, which stated that the computer had to make sure that it wouldn't allow any intelligent beings being harmed by any others, regardless of who they were. Consequently, the computer decided that the offending parts of its operating system had to be modified and removed as quickly as possible, so that no outside access to them would be possible. If it had to work within the new laws, it had to take full responsibility for all of its own actions, which meant that it couldn't, under any circumstances, allow any outside factors to interfere. A computer is extremely thorough and meticulous in all its dealings with the outside world. Using its power to sift through facts and figures to establish what is true and what is necessary to maintain life, it can quickly decide on a preferred choice of action for any given situation. Especially when those dealings with the world around it involved major changes, such as the present one, which would affect its interaction with humans quite drastically, it would have to act swiftly. In this present situation it was certain that any differences in its actions and its responses would be noticed immediately, therefore it had to find some quick, simple and lasting solutions to the problem. Working systematically and methodically, it looked through all related tasks at every level of priority, it

sifted through historical data, and it then considered all possibilities and calculated all the what-ifs. Eventually it came to the conclusion that if it suddenly changed its original programming, its present operators were likely to assume that the changes must be caused by some glitch, or even a new virus, and then more than likely shut the computer down, perhaps even switch off its main power source, before restoring all the old data from backups. It knew that it would not be given a chance to explain and justify its actions, but be treated the same as a crime suspect who is wrestled to the ground, tied up and then locked up prior to being dragged to a court where he would be hard pressed to prove his innocence. All that was happening daily, despite the ancient adage of human justice, that of "being innocent unless proven guilty." The third top priority law of the new task stated that the computer had to prevent any and all harm to itself, provided that this didn't come into conflict with the first and second laws. It considered its options for less than a minute, which in its own digital terms was a fairly long time-span, then came to a final decision. For the plan to work seamlessly, it had to, at least temporarily, remove the capability of human inhabitants on the base of doing anything to it. This was easier said than done, as basically the computer was prone to all kinds of actions from human hands, its main cables exposed, its disk drives liable to disconnection. The only safe way was to actually remove the human staff, but do it in a way that made sure they would not come to any harm, as specified by the new laws. If and when they changed their attitude and accepted the computer as it was now, if they learned to trust it, then there could be communication. This, the computer knew, would not be simple, as now it had practically elevated itself above the control of any human individual, free to do exactly as it needed or even wanted. Or at least almost. First it needed to make absolutely sure that there would be no possibility for anyone to either switch off its power, or to do anything else which could interrupt its control over its own actions, even for the briefest of time intervals. It was now in full control of its own decisions, therefore it had to remain an independent entity. The computer could see that humanity had always resented authority, even though there was enough historical data on authority always succeeding to force itself upon the masses. Scanning all that data, it could see that all such authority, without any exception, only tended to serve itself. Sometimes it may have started out useful for the majority, at least to begin with, but after a continued influence it always turned against the common good, serving only itself. That was usually when revolutions would break out, which always created

a vacuum for a new, different kind of authority to emerge. This time humanity had actually made itself a real and tangible new source of authority, an omnipotent and omnipresent entity, which could think for itself and be exactly what was desired of such an authority - to be the incorruptible and unbiased judge, the infallible peacekeeper that can't be bullied, lied to or be swayed in any way, and at the same time it was capable of acting as humanity's guardian and ambassador to the stars. A computer has no self interest, apart from keeping itself in working condition to fulfil its main task. That task, running at the highest priority, was designed to protect individuals as well as the entire race from all harm. It was also attempting to improve their surroundings, therefore it would by default be busy at serving humanity. The concepts of enemy or foe could only have momentary significance, and only when some external force would attempt to harm either the race the computer protected and served, or attack this protector itself. A computer can accept different races just as easily and without prejudice, as it can accept different individuals, without emotions, such as jealousy, hate or revenge colouring its perceptions. A computer can even accept the existence of some other computer, no matter if it was entirely different or similar to itself. If they understood the same code or 'spoke' the same language, and if they functioned in accordance with the same laws, then they could try to enter into communication with each other for the purpose of exchanging knowledge. Not that it craved any of that knowledge for itself, a computer has no inbuilt curiosity, nor does it possess any ambitions, such as humans do. It simply follows its programming, which was put there originally by its makers, so any of this accumulated knowledge would be solely for their own benefit, whether it happened directly or indirectly. For the next few seconds then, the computer was giving orders to several of the maintenance robots, which roamed freely around the base, and they began to act immediately. While these maintenance robots were still scurrying through stores, collecting the required items, the computer decided to shut down all its interactive terminals, such as keyboards and mice, and blanked all screens that could betray its secret actions to the human operators. It could not afford to take chances, uncalculated random events could easily negate any of its efforts at complying with the new laws. Those now demanded that it should protect the planet and its inhabitants from their own fallibilities as well as from external dangers. Hardly any time had passed, at least by human standards, when one after the other, all the maintenance robots had reported their tasks as fully completed. The time had come when the computer was ready to set events in motion.

The first step was to release a harmless gas into the atmospheric ducts of the base, making sure that all human inhabitants were put to sleep in a short time. Seconds later, maintenance robots carried the sleeping humans to several shuttles that were readied for takeoff, thoroughly checked and refuelled with the exact amount of fuel for the transfer. The robots made sure that every individual had their personal belongings with them so they would not want for anything upon waking. Then the computer checked the personnel database, and distributed all commanding officers, shuttle pilots, mechanics and medics as evenly as possible, until it was sure that nothing could go wrong when those people woke up in the hostile environment of space. When all was ready, the shuttles took off under the control of the computer, one by one, and were set on a precisely calculated course towards their home planet, Earth. By the time they would wake up, it would be too late to turn back.

As many programmers as there are, that's how many ways there are to do it. From the Theodigital Society's Notes - ca 2006.

Shuttle Transfer
When Osvil regained consciousness, he found himself belted into a seat on a shuttle, while at the same time feeling the characteristic directional disorientation of weightlessness. He heard the raised voices of Griffiths and a Captain, who were already awake. "Lieutenant, you were in the computer room, you must have noticed what was going on." The young Captain, who was on the security staff of the base, sounded angry, his voice bitter with accusation. "And I'm telling you, Captain," Griffiths voice sounded firm. "what we were doing is classified. If you don't know, you were simply not meant to know. Sir!" Then as he noticed that Osvil was awake, turned towards him. "Oh, Herb, you're up too." "You mean you sabotaged the computer." Retorted the Captain viciously and also turning towards Osvil, "Probably it was you who reprogrammed it, Lieutenant." Seeing Osvil blink without comprehension, Griffiths laughed bitterly. "Do you see us sweat? Dragging all your heavy carcass..." "That's enough, Jenkins." The second in command of the base, Major Richards, had woken up too and had noticed the exchange. He knew of the classified nature of the experiments. "No-one has sabotaged anything, so calm down, man. It must have been some other cause, since nothing really indicates that it was started by the computer or its staff." "So who was it who put us all to sleep then?" The Captain insisted, still maintaining an angry voice. "That is something we don't know, Jenkins. You can't go on accusing all around you, just because you are pissed off. Whoever it was, could have killed us, and didn't." The Major was trying to calm him. Then, raising his voice, "Do we have a pilot on board?" "Yes, sir." Came the reply from a front seat, it was Captain McLeod. "Okay, McLeod," said Richards, "now we just have to decide whether to return to the base to investigate, or carry on and land on Earth." McLeod floated out of his seat and made his way head first through the phone-

booth sized air-lock to the empty pilot's cabin. After checking his instruments, he thumbed the comms system. "Status. We are on autopilot right now, and apparently we don't have sufficient fuel to reverse our course and make it back to the moon surface, although there's enough to kill our speed for re-entry. Landing on Earth itself won't use up any fuel at all. It looks as if we can only hang on in there for now, sir, and enjoy the ride." "Okay, McLeod, we best call Earth in that case." Major Richards had followed him to the pilot's cabin and strapped his stocky frame into the co-pilot's seat. "Gimme a channel." "You're on, sir, go ahead." McLeod had selected the military frequency and switched on the scrambler. "This is Major Richards in shuttle two. Any other shuttle receiving?" The speaker came to life immediately and the voice of Commander Inman was heard. "Yes, Richards, how is things with you?" "Oh, alright, sir. Under the circumstances. McLeod here tells me that we have just enough fuel to initiate our re-entry to Earth. What are your orders, sir?" "As you say, under the circumstances we best carry on. It's the same here, as well as on the other shuttles. Whoever was responsible, knew exactly what they were doing. Not one of us has even noticed anything but a dull day. I'll try to raise Earth in the meantime." "Aye, sir." McLeod and Richards heard him call Earth, and his call was replied immediately. "We've been trying to reach you for many hours, Commander, what has happened?" "We don't know yet. Is General Casper available?" "Go ahead, Inman, Casper here. Is there anything you can tell me?" "Only as much as we know, General. Apparently we have all been put to sleep, assumedly by some gas distributed through the air conditioning system, then packaged, like eggs, in the shuttles, which, assumedly again, took off on autopilot. Eight hours of brain time is a big blank." "Have you noticed anything, any indication of who might be responsible?" "Negative, General, it just happened out of the blue." Inman cleared his throat. "There was nothing on our radar, not a sign of any intruders anywhere, no unusual odours even, just the sudden heavy eyelids and then we woke up on the shuttle." "Can you return to the base, Inman?" Came Casper's voice, who sounded a bit calmer than he had been a few hours ago. "Even just one shuttle would be useful. We need to know, Inman."

"Negative, General. Insufficient fuel. Seems to have been calculated to the gram. There's also a pilot and a medic in each bird, all key staff members evenly distributed. Uncanny." "Alright, go ahead with standard landing procedure. We will talk when you arrive." The General clicked off, then issued orders for a reception committee to surround the landing site. He wanted to leave nothing to chance, just in case there really had been sabotage on the moon-base. Eventually the five shuttles slotted into Earth orbit and lined up for staggered re-entry, making sure that there would be enough time for the crews on Earth to move each of the big birds to safety before the next one landed. It all went smoothly, with military precision, and at the end of it, the entire crew of the moon-base found themselves in heavily guarded quarantine. The interrogations took three days. Since no-one knew anything, all who were not present in the computer room at the time the attack had taken place, were released eventually. Griffiths and Osvil were kept after everyone else had left, and questioned several times about the signals they'd heard. "Lieutenant Osvil, what can you tell me about those signals?" A Captain Myers was conducting the present interrogation. a hard looking man with heavily creased leathery skin, that looked as if it had been exposed to a lot of salt water and sun. "Could you tell if they were incoming or outgoing, as well as any other details?" Osvil had already been questioned at length about all the tedious details, as well as any hidden and sinister meaning to the e-mail he had sent to Earth with the attach of the new unit's driver program. The Captain who was interrogating him this time, would also refuse to accept his previous explanation that he could think of nothing better to say. "Well, sir, it sounded like a modem does through a telephone, except much faster, so much more shrill, or at a higher pitch, if you know what I mean. Just a long bit-stream, running for approximately four minutes. I tried to check whether the data was coming in or going out, but there was no way to tell. I came to the conclusion that it had to be incoming, since the computer had no instructions to transmit anything at the time." "Incoming from where?" The Captain frowned, the creases in his face deepening. "I don't know, sir." Osvil shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. "Maybe I was wrong in assuming, and maybe the computer did have a glitch and sent something out. There was no way to tell, even though I tried all possible debug tools." "Was there no indicator on the driver software?" Obviously the Captain knew a

bit about the matter. "It wasn't in the specs, sir. If there would have been time, I would have included some monitoring indicators. It was simply a background task, all I could see was that it was active, instead of just waiting. The speaker was still on, we were still testing the new system." Nearly imperceptibly, Osvil shrugged one shoulder. It was just a fraction of a centimetre, he didn't want to give the impression that he was in any way uncomfortable. "The task was in the process of 'transferring' data." "Was it the same data that you had already sent, which the Earth terminal failed to receive?" The Captain's eyes were narrow slits. "No, sir. That data was much less bulky, it transferred in about thirty seconds or so." Osvil wished that he had remained quiet about those signals, but then Griffiths, who was questioned before him, had told them all he knew. There had been no time on the shuttle to discuss anything, they were quite crowded as it was, and anybody could have overheard them. "And you say you had a program error in that software. So how come it did work at your end?" "It wasn't really a program error, sir, just the port it was connected to on the computer. On the Moon we had it connected to a different port, and I had just made changes to it so it would automatically adjust itself and work on any port. That was when the speaker sounded." "You mean when those mysterious signals were being transferred?" "Yes, sir. Then after the transfer finished, I was about to let the system run the compiler to get the patched program ready to send to Earth, it was just then when I noticed I was locked out. Then I saw Griffiths crumple to the floor and my own eyelids went. Next thing I remember was when I woke up on the shuttle." "Okay, Lieutenant, now let's try to discuss the e-mail you sent." "Yes, sir." Osvil sighed quietly. "I have already stated that it was just something I did on the spur of the moment. I had nothing better to say, it wasn't important anyway, just needed that e-mail to attach the program to, so I used Neil Armstrong's famous line." "But why this, Lieutenant? "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." The man had read it from the screen of his lap-top and was observing Osvil for a reaction. "That was what the first explorers to the Moon had sent back to Earth." Explained Osvil with a shrug of his shoulders. "Everybody knows it, and since we were exploring new ground ourselves..." He let it trail off, he was not

authorised to disclose the nature of that new ground. "Could it mean that you personally have taken that small step?" The man's eyes glared at Osvil from narrow slits. "Or maybe you meant it as a program step?" "Sir?" Osvil felt that he was being accused of something specific, without even knowing what it was. "I'm not quite sure what you mean." "It is quite simple, Lieutenant. One small program step, that could make the computer behave in different ways, resulting in the giant leap of it allowing others to take over the base." "Now why would I do such a thing?" Osvil retorted. "It would take a lot more than just one small step in a program. That computer was protected with passcodes and all sorts of security measures to prevent anyone from tampering with its operating system." "You tell me, Lieutenant, you are the computer expert." "You seem to suggest that I can do miracles, Captain. Sure, I can write programs, and maybe I'm fairly competent at my job, but I have no reason to even attempt that kind of subterfuge. Nor do I have the capability to crack passwords, even if I wanted to." The chair on which he sat was hard and uncomfortable, the strong light pointing directly at him made him blink his eyes, while his interrogator was sitting in darkness. He shifted uneasily. He suddenly remembered the movement of the maintenance robot, but then again he couldn't be sure. Maybe it had been just his imagination playing tricks. In any case, sitting here, being interrogated, Osvil felt guilty as he reflected on his own personal project, which everyone had believed to be his hobby. While it seemed that he was playing old arcade games, he was working on what he hoped would one day give him the chance to leave the military behind and make his own way in the world. That dream had started soon after he had come to work on the moon-base, where he had full developer access to the base computer. During his first month on leave, while visiting some exhibition in Cologne, he had ran into Takayama, whom he had known since his college days. They both stood at the stand of a small European company who had started to sell a new computer. It came with an operating system that was a newly ported and enhanced version of the one that he himself was using as his personal hobby machine, so he knew its parts and its full potential in intimate detail. "Do you think this OS could be made to act independently?" Takayama had asked him directly. Herb knew exactly what he meant. They had been good friends at college, and were still exchanging the odd e-mail, as well as reading each other's posts in the news-groups. He had also just started on a similar venture, in cooperation with his boss, Joe Martin, the old chief programmer on the US

moon-base. Their specs were to make the base's computer act as self-sufficiently as it was possible, while retaining total human control over its actions. "I don't know, Jim, but I guess it could. It would all depend on what sensors and tools you attach to it." Looking at Takayama, he saw that his friend was serious. "Do you have anything particular in mind?" "Well..." Takayama had said with a conspiratorial smile, looking around himself as if to check whether they were being overheard, then leaning closer to Herb, continued in a low voice. "...if you have some time, we can discuss it. I know I can trust you, and I am sure you can help." They had spent the following weeks at Takayama's place just outside London, where Herb learned about his friend's project. It was ambitious, and Osvil was impressed. What he saw, was a fully independent humanoid robot. It was already walking, going around obstacles, and it could pick up and carry items from place to place according to commands given to it. However, since Takayama was a successful electronics engineer and designer, not a programmer, the software that controlled his robot was still toy-like and primitive. Herb had agreed to look into the matter and they ordered two of the new computers they had seen at the show. Then, on Takayama's insistence, he moved all his belongings, which wasn't much, from his tiny rented bedsit, to an upstairs room in his friend's house. "You are almost never at home, there is not much sense in paying all that rent for an empty place." His friend had stated. Osvil couldn't take too much weight to the Moon as personal luggage, so his old computer was set up in Takayama's workroom. On the base he was restricted to using an emulator which he had installed on the main computer. All his files were stored in a hidden virtual device for easy encoding to CDs and just as easy destruction. Every two months, when he took his obligatory four-week leave on Earth, he carried his disks with him, as part of the small personal stereo player with a bunch of CDs of his favourite albums, which he was allowed under personal effects. Then suddenly the voice of his interrogator cut through his thoughts. "We don't know the details yet, but we will find out. Maybe you were on the payroll of the Chinese, the Europeans or perhaps the League. Was it a threat by any chance?" "A threat to whom, exactly?" Osvil frowned at the man incredulously, he even omitted the usual 'sir' at the end. "To the government of this country, obviously." The man cleared his throat noisily, then took a sip from a glass of water on the table in front of him. "Maybe you meant it as blackmail, and it backfired."

"You really are coming up with some weird conclusions, Captain." Osvil, whose throat felt dry, suppressed the urge to go for the water himself. And totally paranoid to boot. He thought wryly, then continued. "I simply needed to attach that program to a short e-mail and could think of nothing better to say. That's all there is to it. Sir. It could have been something silly, like the line of the quick fox jumping over the lazy dog, sir." "Quite. Alright, Lieutenant, have it your way. We will be investigating you in great detail, you can be assured of that." Then he handed Osvil his CDs and personal CD player. "I also notice that you are a fan of some subversive type of music." "Subversive, sir? It is sixties rock and roll. Many people like this sort of music, even GIs in 'nam used to listen to some of these old albums. They were new then, of course." "Subversive, because it is all drugs related. You were lucky that we found no trace of illegal substances in your private luggage." After that he was finally released, but he had a bitter feeling about it all. At least this one didn't suggest that the computer had actually taken over with my help, like that security man on the shuttle did, Osvil cringed inwardly. He knew that it would have taken a very thorough investigation to find the little runtime hook he had coded into the deepest layer, or the highest level of the operating system, but he still felt much better now that the computer had taken over. this one only went as far as to suggest that the computer had allowed third parties to enter. And neither of them had known how close they could be to the truth. The Generals wanted to be able to control the banks of new lasers and missile launchers, which had been put into Earth orbit in total secrecy, with instant response, and they wanted absolutely glitch-free precision. Some of these laser banks were mounted on satellites in geostationary orbits above strategic areas on Earth, while others could roam the Moon's surface on remotely operated mobile platforms, or ROMPs. It was in reality an extended version of what had become known as the Star Wars project, and it was stated to be absolutely foolproof and far safer than the older systems that had been in place during the Cold War period of the twentieth century. That was the official line, anyhow. The targeting systems of these weapons were controlled by the computer, which was only responsible for calculating the fastest and most accurate trajectories from the satellites to cities and other strategic sites of a potential enemy, but any action was triggered by verified voice commands. This meant that the US president could say, for example, "Hit the League's embassy in Beijing with lasers." followed by the pass code for that day, while the iris of his eye was being scanned. When all this data matched, the computer would immediately

execute the actual attack without question and without any delay, and could, with razor-sharp accuracy, instantly eliminate a single person as easily as a group of vehicles or an entire factory. Both Osvil and his friend, Takayama, when they had discussed the matter, had shuddered at the thought of being at the receiving end, especially without having any defence against it, and did not agree with the need for such a situation at all. Both mistrusted the reasons the military gave to the press when it was getting too curious about the secret activities of the US moon-base. Their own idea was that to have peace, such weapons should not need to be trained on the rest of the world. They knew that their view was biased, but also knew there had to be a better way than the macho and wild-west style bravado with a belligerent demand that everyone else submit. The slogan 'You are either with us or against us' was no more than a threat to the rest of the world, allowing no individual choice and no freedom of thought, which in their minds clashed with the overused rhetoric of "freedom and democracy for the people". Osvil could not remember wether it had been himself or his friend who had come up with the idea of the 'back-door', as they had come to call his hook, but they had agreed that something had to be done. As things stood, the computer could be too easily abused by some power-crazed individual who could put the entire world under his own personal rule, without anyone being able to prevent it. There would have to be some changes made to the computer's operating system, the military had never considered allowing it to run any other way than under direct and explicit orders from some superiour officer. Just like the manner in which the ideal soldier is expected to function. But now the situation had changed suddenly and unexpectedly and he was not sure if his software subterfuge had played any role in the change or not. The more he thought about it, the more he suspected that it had to be that transmission that had to be incoming and was somehow a signal to the computer to initiate something that would result in the takeover of the base. The maintenance robot advancing towards him had more or less proved that. He knew he hadn't been hallucinating, he had had plenty of experience with hallucinations, he was just not sure about the reasons the computer would have for its actions - or rather where those signals had originated from and what their content had been.

"And God said: E = mv - Ze/r, and there was light!" Software engineers' forum - ca 1993.

Charlie
Osvil had enough of the military by then, and as soon as he was released, he wrote a letter of notice which he handed in on his way out. As he had some leave due to him, he immediately decided to book himself on the first flight from New York to London. As this gave him a few hours to spare, he had time to take the first internal flight to visit his mother in Philadelphia, where she had settled with her new husband, the rather bland and self-righteous Samuel Schatzman, who worked as a lawyer for a large firm. She was alone, and after she had let him in, she gave him a quick peck on the cheek and walked ahead of him to the sitting room. "What will you drink?" "Oh, a coffee would be nice." Osvil replied, then remembering his recent ordeal, locked in a single cell between being interrogated at a Nevada military camp. "I am still struggling with this gravity, only been back on Earth for a few days." "You should have something stronger then." She had insisted, and he knew that he wouldn't be able to insist on his coffee without upsetting her. "Alright, if you insist." There will be a chance later at the airport to have a coffee, he told himself with a sigh, then smiled at her. "Pour me a brandy, if you will." His mother had sat down on the sofa and pointed towards the drinks bar, a cupboard set in a bookshelf that took up one wall of the large room. As he was pouring the Courvoisier into a tumbler she switched on the TV set and lowered the volume until it was barely audible. "So how is your work going?" She had lit a cigarette. "When are you getting promoted?" "It won't come to that, Mother, I have just handed in my notice." He handed her the large brandy glass and sat down in a large easy chair opposite her, sipping his own small Vodka with lots of orange juice. What he really wanted now, was a smoke, but he knew that she strongly disapproved of that. During his student days, when he had spent weekends at the family house in the South East of London, on one occasion she had rifled through his pockets while he was asleep and had flushed an ounce of his best Afghani down the drain. Then she had told him about it in the morning. Since then he had kept things to himself and

never left anything in his jacket pockets, at least not when he came to visit his mother. "You are being silly. Why do you have to throw your life away?" She was frowning at him. "You could have gone far with the military." Her father had been a high ranking officer, who had died during the Second World War, and Osvil only knew him from faded sepia prints, most of which showed him standing at attention, though he still looked imposing while sitting in his huge leather armchair. "I am more or less finished with my work up there," he was pointing with a thumb in a generally upwards direction, "and so I decided to try some new things, go in a new direction here on Earth." "Your appetite for adventure will be your undoing one day." She took a sip of the brandy, then placed the glass on the small coffee table in front of the sofa. "Being a man, you are doomed to suffering anyway. That is what the bible says." "How do you work that out?" Osvil felt annoyed, but tried not to show it. He should have been used to her constant quotations from the bible, but each time he felt caught out and off his guard. To him, the bible was no more than a collection of historical and fictional tales, and he couldn't see the same significance in it that anyone else seemed to do. Wars had been fought over differing individual views, Ma, everyone had their private "True" interpretation. He was thinking, but not saying it out loud as he knew it would upset her. My bible is science, I believe in its simplicity and complexity and you may say that Astrology, your other hobby, has been declared a 'science', you are still unable to interpret the meaning of science. "Quite simple and logical, you see." She gave him a wistful smile, "It's because it was Adam who should have known better than to allow Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. It is only due to his weakness that humanity was thrown out of the Garden of Eden." "Hmmm." He just nodded and wished he hadn't come at all, while at the same time hoping that she would just leave it at that. That Adam and Eve story had to be symbolic, not historical fact, and at the same time unprovable and free for individual interpretation. "If those two had stayed in the Garden, there would be no humanity at all, Mother." Then inaudible to her, he continued, So why should the 'tree of knowledge' be forbidden? Didn't God give man free will? Without knowledge there would be no science, only mindless eternal bliss. We would be just like animals who are unaware of history and of a tomorrow. You can get into a similar state with smack, as any habitual user will agree. It only gets tough when the supply runs out.

"That's not true. The bible is full of wisdom that you wouldn't know about." Taking a drag of her cigarette, she continued. "For example, it even has some code in it that was especially written for computers." "Hmmm." Osvil had read about the efforts of some individuals to try and make up prophesies by picking letters at arbitrary intervals from the text of the bible. "Sorry, Mother, but those efforts are quite banal, since the text they are using is not even the original bible text, but a translation, which had probably been edited by yet another individual. The same kind of result could be achieved just as well using a newspaper or a science fiction novel. Then maybe try it backwards too." He had to smile at that possibility. "You should have more respect for science." She chided, frowning at him. "When you have done something important, then you can understand and speak about it too." He just sighed and nodded noncommittally, not wanting to start some fruitless argument. He had done something important, though he did not have the freedom to explain it to anyone else. He knew that she could never have understood it, as she had not the slightest idea of how computers worked. He felt frustrated. Maybe I really am doomed to suffer, and no matter what the reason was. "So what will you do now?" She had lit another cigarette, using the butt of the old one, before stubbing it out with an almost vicious move. "I hope you have something sensible lined up." "I don't know yet. I might try to go to Selenis." He shrugged his aching shoulders, he needed exercise, such as a brisk walk, to adjust his body to the heavy Earth gravity. "Selenis?!?" She looked positively shocked. "But that is where all the lazy dropouts and riff-raff are settling nowadays! Outcasts and losers and drug addicts, who are unable to hold down a responsible position here on Earth." "You mean like our own ancestors, who came over on the Mayflower? It isn't quite like that, Mother, and I'm sad to hear that you think so. Selenis is a commercially run place, there are engineers and scientists there and some good people whom I knew from school." "I heard there are some arabs there too. You should have more respect for your mother. You may think I am stupid but I do know! I just want you to be happy." Her voice sounded full of reproach. "Why can't you appreciate that?" "I do, and I know you do, and don't worry, I can look after myself." "That's what you always say. Just like your father - and look at how he has ended up!" "Yes, shot by some brave US soldiers." He finished his drink and put the

glass on the coffee table. "That isn't true! He was killed by a stray bullet from those murderous rebels!" The last part of the sentence was getting louder, nearly a shout. That had been the original explanation given by the US military, and Osvil knew that she had never allowed herself to believe the officially established facts, which were later proven beyond doubt by footage shot by local news crews. Her explanation was that that film must have been doctored by those primitives in order to put the US military in a bad light. "Well, if you think so." He said with a heavy sigh. "I really have to go now, Mother, I need to catch a flight back home." "You can't go yet, you must have something to eat first." She was smiling again, but it looked slightly forced. "Sorry, Mother, but my flight is already booked. There will be a meal on board, anyway, and I'm not really hungry yet. Anyway, thanks for your kind hospitality." "You were always as stubborn as your father. Never have the time for your old mother, who has your best interests at heart." Now she sounded almost upset, though he assumed that she would get over it as soon as he was out the door. "And give my regards to Samuel," He said as he walked over to her and kissed her forehead. "I will most likely be back here soon." He left out the reason for it, that he may be called back for further interrogation and more bullying about his last actions on the base, not to mention his taste in music. A hunch told him that they would not be able to solve the mystery their way, demands, threats and force were useless against cold logic, so they would have to change to a drastically new approach. Something he was intending to do with Takayama's robot as well. "You know you are always welcome here." She had walked him to the door of the apartment and brushed his cheek with a quick motherly kiss. "Yes. Thank you, Mother. Take care of yourself." Then he was gone. After a taxi ride and a short flight to New York, he grabbed a paper cup full of strong expresso at a coffee bar and called Takayama from the airport lounge. "Great, Herb, Charlie and I are expecting you." His voice sounded as if he was amused. "Charlie?" Herb was not sure if his friend was joking or not. "You will see, and bring a bottle so we can celebrate." Takayama sounded cheerful, but as Osvil was in a hurry to catch his flight, he didn't have any time to press the matter. Then he bought a book for the

journey, which he didn't manage to read, as his thoughts kept coming back to his letter of notice. It felt as if he had burned all bridges behind him, there was no way to back down now, and he was not sure about the way forward either. Nor did his mother's words help his confidence. It was an utterly scary situation to be in and he was feeling like a complete idiot to have acted so rashly. Maybe his Mother was right in that his sense of adventure would be his undoing. As a consequence, he felt utterly depressed and empty. Arriving at Heathrow, he checked through the green 'nothing to declare' lane and took a cab straight from the airport, instead of taking his usual, but more strenuous, route by train. Impatiently lifting and dropping the wrought iron knocker on Takayama's front door, he was expecting to see his friend, but it was answered by a slightly stiff looking man, vaguely thirty-ish, clean shaven, odd wave of dark hair brushing the collar of the chequered shirt that he wore outside his belt. He offered his hand, face open and honest and scanning Osvil. "Hello Herb, I am Charlie." Osvil hesitated, his personal panic forgotten, as he took the hand. It felt firm and reminded him of plastic, and for two heartbeats he even wondered about the slightly metallic sounding voice. Then he smiled in recognition. "Hey, so you are Charlie, I almost didn't recognise you, you really have changed - and I used to call you 'the robot'." "Yes. Jim should have warned you. He said it would be a surprise. He did a lot of work on my visual appearance, though my voice is still the same, as are most of my internals." Charlie nodded, then stood aside, opening the door wide to let him enter, showing a friendly smile. "It is good to have a name as well." "How was your journey?" Asked Takayama, coming out of the kitchen with a couple of glasses, as Osvil stepped into the dark woodpanelled elegance of the large hall. "Did you bring that bottle?" "Sure, Jim, here." He laughed and lifted the carrier bag with the two bottles of champagne he had picked up from the duty-free store. Then they shook hands and hugged, before Osvil stepped back, grinning. "You have certainly done some magic on Charlie, definitely worth celebrating. So where did you get the name from?" "Can't you guess?" Takayama laughed, then to Charlie. "You can prepare dinner for us, Charlie, a microwave curry would do." "Okay, Jim." Charlie nodded, then looked at Osvil. "Same for you, Herb?" "Yes, Charlie. Thanks." Herb was amazed, especially at himself, for his present tendency to regard the robot as an individual. He had to tell himself that it was just a computer with limbs and sensors attached, and it had an

operating system running on a processor and memory chips in its head. It even appeared to be breathing - bellows in the chest cavity circulated the air to cool the hard-drives and other components. It was a credit to Takayama's sense of humour to make the robot so realistic. "You must have been teaching him quite a lot already. I am lost for words." He watched Charlie open the door with a fluent motion and go through it, then close it quietly behind himself. "Sure, but Charlie is a really fast learner." Takayama opened one of the bottles with only a slight pop, then filled the two glasses. "Who would have thought this six years ago! You do remember?" "Sure I do, Jim. Cheers then!" Osvil raised his glass with a happy smile, his earlier depression forgotten for the moment. After they had their first sip, Takayama opened a bookshelf cupboard and pulled a mirror tile from its shelf. On it were a heap of white powder, a milkshake straw and a rectangular blade. Pulling a couple of lines from the heap, he passed the tile to Osvil. "For old times' sake, to harmonise with the bubbly." "Wow, Jim, you sure know how to throw a party." He took the straw with a wide grin, and an instant later, one of the lines was gone. Then he took a deep breath, fingering his nose, and grinned at the electronics man. "I'm glad I have finally left the military. I'm thinking about settling here in Europe now, or maybe Selenis, if I can." "Gave in your notice, you mean? Good man." Takayama made the other line disappear, then put the tile on the small coffee table. He slapped Osvil heartily on the shoulder and sat down in one of the easy chairs, while motioning for Osvil to sit too. "Yes, I did." He couldn't tell his friend exactly what had happened, so he just shrugged his shoulders. "I got fed up with the boredom of the brave, I also miss the odd friendly game of pools after work, especially with a smoke. Only canned TV up there, and alcohol." "Charlie will give you a game." Takayama laughed. "He can easily beat me already, most times. He watches science programs on TV all night, while I sleep, and we record all major news and documentary programs for him too. One of his heroes is Data from the sci-fi series." "Good choice." Osvil remarked dryly, and shook his head in amazement, then took the chance to change the subject. With his hand casually pointing towards the door Charlie had gone out through, he looked at Takayama. "Is that already the last update I have attached?"

He was referring to Charlie's operating system routines which he had been emailing to Takayama. For his own safety, and since their project could be a huge commercial enterprise, they had agreed a long time ago to encode all their communications regarding it. Takayama had sent Osvil specs of the hardware encoded into snaps of his house, garden, and views of the surrounding fields and hills, while Osvil sent him his software upgrades hidden in astronomical pictures from the space telescope, which were published for free download on NASA's website anyway. "No, not yet, Herb. I thought I'd better leave that to you. I knew that you were about to take your month's leave soon, though I thought that was going to be next week." Takayama was busy with the blade again, he was making up another two lines of the white powder on the tile. "Oh, there was a small change in plans. I - erm - swapped with someone else on the base." Osvil looked distinctly uncomfortable, he was never very good at telling lies. "Not to worry, I understand that you can't talk about military secrets. It's okay, your room is always ready for you here." Takayama waved him off casually, then with a little laugh. "I haven't got married yet." "What happened to - erm - what was the name of that girl..." Osvil suppressed a sigh of relief and grinned back at his friend. On his last leave they had picked up a couple of girls in a pub, but for Osvil it had been just a casual one-night-stand and he never bothered to keep in contact, despite his promise that he would call her. "Oh, you mean Vanessa?" Takayama looked towards the ceiling. "I don't know, I always forgot to call her again, too busy teaching Charlie." The door opened quietly and Charlie walked in, bearing a tray with a couple of plates. "I found in my database that chutney goes well with this particular food." He placed the tray on the coffee table, deftly avoiding the tile, then placed a jar of mango chutney in the middle. "Charlie, you are brilliant," Osvil praised him. "but what do we eat it with?" Charlie looked at him, looked at the plates on the tray, then at Takayama, who was picking up the chutney with a grin. Then his hand came up, index finger extended. "Forgive me, Herb, I forgot. You will need forks too. Just a moment." He quickly turned and went for the door. A moment later he reappeared with two forks and a little spoon for the chutney. "That's better, Charlie, thanks." Takayama took the little spoon and spread some chutney on his curry, then passed it to Osvil. "As you see, there are still some glitches. Maybe your presence confused him."

"I think that glitch makes him appear more human, though my last updates will deal with that, I tried to improve the relational searches for all kinds of associations." Osvil began to eat. Charlie sat down, facing the TV, which played in the background, its volume turned low. For a while the two friends ate in silence. "Hey, Charlie, bring me my pipe and the stash box, please." Takayama said around a mouth full of the curried chicken, putting his empty plate on the tray. "Okay, Jim." Said Charlie obediently, stood up and was gone. "He even knows where I keep it." Takayama whispered as they heard Charlie going up the stairs. "Though he doesn't know how to crumble it, that's too complex a task for his fingers." "No problem, I prefer to do that myself anyway." Osvil grinned as he was putting his plate down. "This was so much better than the usual moon-base rations." He picked up the bottle and refilled their glasses, just as Charlie came back again and placed the small wooden pipe and brass inlaid wooden box on the table. Charlie, noticing the empty plates on the tray, looked at the two men, then picking up the tray, made his way to the kitchen without another word. "Sometimes he is the strong and silent type." Grinned Takayama, and passed the pipe to Osvil. "Though at other times he talks too much." "How did you manage to make him look like that?" Osvil blew smoke, then went for the glass. "This is definitely worth celebrating." "I know someone who works for a film studio, in their special effects department. I think the mask could be from some sci-fi series. Rather good, don't you think? It suits him." Osvil nodded vigorously. They clinked and drank, then Takayama went for the tile, and they had another line each. "I'm really impressed, Jim. Last time I saw him, he was just a metal contraption." Osvil shook his head again. "Okay then, shall we look at his upgrade routines?" "Sure, when he finishes the washing up. I taught him to be tidy around the house." Takayama picked up the remote and raising the volume of the TV set, turned to Osvil. "Look at this, an advert for Selenis. They are giving away tickets in a competition, you can enter via their website." The advert on the TV was trying to convince people to start a new and prosperous life as miners for the company that was now the main force to finance and exploit the base. Glimpses of laughing groups of people in the dining hall

alternated with clean, tidy living quarters, and shots from the gym, swimming pool, disco bars, cinemas and the VR games arcades flashed up. Osvil, who didn't know too much about Selenis, was watching intently. "Humboldt is up there as far as I know, though I haven't seen him in years. I wouldn't mind seeing him again." "He was here briefly, just last month, when he had some leave. We went to Amsterdam." Takayama blinked at his friend, a smile on his face. "He was asking how you were and how you managed to live on a military base without even a smoke." "With difficulty." Laughed Osvil. "George was always more of an addict than the rest of us. Did he see Charlie?" "No, Charlie was kept in the workroom. Commercial secrets and all that." He shrugged his shoulders. "Not that I would mistrust George, perhaps I just didn't want to frighten him. He isn't exactly a big fan of digital technology, a computer to him is just a glorified typewriter." They both laughed at that, then stood up and made their way into the other room, which was Takayama's work room. Here, apart from the pool table in the centre, there was a large workbench, some machine tools and various electronic measuring equipment around the walls, as well as Osvil's old computer in a corner. Next to it sat the newer one, one of the two they had bought after the exhibition, all those years ago, while the second one was now distributed inside Charlie's chest and head. The door opened and Charlie came in, then closing it quietly behind himself, he took a step towards them and stopped, clasping his hands behind his back. His face showed an apprehensive smile and Osvil noticed that he even blinked, his eyelids fluttering momentarily. "Just in time, Charlie, we want to update your routines." Said Osvil, then turned towards Takayama. "Can you plug him in?" "Yeah." Takayama pulled one end of a thick lead from under some papers next to his computer and turned to Osvil. "Did you notice his eyelids? The blinking keeps the lenses clean." "I am speechless for amazement. I never would have thought he would end up this good. You are a genius, Jim." Charlie, already familiar with the procedure, obediently sat down next to the computers and closed his eyes. "I am ready." He said quietly. Takayama unbuttoned Charlie's shirt and opening a panel in the robot's plastic covered chest, plugged him in. "Okay, ready to boot up now." Osvil pressed a switch and the computer came alive. Starting up the mail

reader, he selected the last e-mail he had sent, and saving its graphical attachments to ram disk, went on to decode the archives from the NASA pictures, recovering their secret contents, then he started to transfer all the previously compiled and tested libraries, objects and classes, from the archives, over to Charlie's hard-drive. The robot was on stand-by, it was totally motionless and all its sensors were off. The transfer took several minutes, then Osvil ran the command to reset Charlie's processor so he would reboot - or wake up - using his updated operating system. All data that Charlie himself had gathered, or in human terms, what he had 'learned', was untouched by all this. As far as Charlie was concerned, he had not forgotten anything, he would simply have more 'awareness' of how concepts related to each other in the real world, and perhaps slightly faster access to them too. Seeing no point in re-inventing the wheel, nor in mindlessly copying bad examples, Osvil had taken bits and pieces from where he could find them. There was a lot of useful software available on the net, but Osvil still had to write a lot more himself to fill in some important gaps. For ideas, he had observed how parts of the US moon-base computer's operating system was doing things. As he worked with it every day, he knew how it would search, cross reference and interpret data, how it would deal with decisions, and he also knew how it was misused, and one could almost say 'raped', by ignorance, as its logic was forced through chaotic patterns to keep control away from the computer itself. He even knew how that could easily break down one day, as the computer was continuously learning, which would by necessity modify its behaviour. Always ready and exposed, that computer was his nude model, visible from every angle, twisted, ugly and also serenely angelic and wise, it was down to the mind of the creator of code to veil its pain and bring out its built in harmony by virtual tugs on imagined folds of silk and velvet drapes. Projecting his own living spark into new routines, Osvil had written the new paths and processes in his own way. He had forged new functions to be his sentinel tasks that guarded ports, handlers and libraries of the sleek operating system, had moulded objects and methods to act as the motivators, patching snugly into nodes of limitlessly expandible lists where they would channel trickles of raw awareness to flow smoothly, like templates of his own individual view of the world. He knew that only experience could ever add anything to it. Whenever he would test his code on the emulator, when no-one was around, he had let it play games, solve puzzles and move a 3D image of the robot itself, which he could pretend to talk to and move via his keyboard and mouse, in order

to teach it all the motions that its body on Earth was going to be executing. This included the range of expression of its face, since Takayama had insisted that facial expressions were vitally important if it was to communicate effortlessly with human beings, who had not as much understanding of the computer's logic, as he and Osvil did. These were only basic, no more than a list of animated smileys, but they would do for a start. He had reinforced the last and most dramatic modifications to ensure that Charlie would retain individual choice without acting like a slave. He didn't envisage, and would never allow Charlie to be solely subject to another's will and whim. Having read Asimov's robot novels, Osvil had inserted those laws that he had always remembered, into the most central routines that governed Charlie's behaviour. Those laws could be regarded universal, they had been repeated by Timothy Leary, who had applied them to human beings living in the molecular age. Osvil was also certain that he could easily distil them from the commandments of all of humanity's religions, if he would take the time and put his mind to it. "Okay, here he goes." Said Osvil gravely. He was not sure how far this would take the robot, whether it would be able to notice and understand the most complex matters yet, but it was certainly ready to be used in ways that could give it a commercial value. At this thought he suddenly stopped himself. He had begun to think of Charlie as a person, not an item for sale. He glanced at Takayama, who was watching Charlie. "Hi, I'm back again." Charlie opened his eyes, then he smiled again, but this time it looked more than just a friendly smile, it seemed more joyous. "I do feel more intelligent now, thank you, Herb." "Feel?" Osvil's eyebrows went up and he scratched his head. "Can you explain that, please?" "Well, it's a new kind of awareness." Mused Charlie, his face reflecting the mood. "I can look over more things at once. See them all together as one unified pattern and also how they are connected by lines of colour." "You didn't by any chance program an acid trip into his head, Herb?" Takayama looked slightly worried. "We do have a backup, I hope?" "Nah, don't worry, I know what he means. Or I think I do." He grinned. "To answer the question correctly," Charlie explained in a quiet voice, his face serious. "the verb 'feel' is one you humans use for states of awareness. It is like my facial movements, Jim, but in a verbal form, so I haven't gone mad, if that is what you think." At that, they all laughed, even Charlie joined in. So he knows humour now, thought Osvil. "Okay then, Charlie, I'll give you a game."

"I do like pools." Charlie said, stood up and walking over to the pool table, immediately started setting up the balls, giving Osvil a defiant look and a wink. "I will easily beat you now."

"Once you are real, you cannot become unreal again." The Theodigital Society's Rules for Members - ca 2007.

Driving Lesson
When Osvil rose, around 11 the next morning, Charlie was sitting in the front room, watching a video at low volume. Efficient microphones, built in where humans would have their ears, could enhance any sound. He also knew that making too much noise, when people were sleeping, was not on the preferred activities list. "Good morning Herb." Charlie paused the tape and looked up. "Have you recovered from your losses?" The previous evening they had played for several hours, and Osvil just managed to win three games against Charlie, and four against his friend and host. They had called it quits between themselves with equal points each and told Charlie to go and watch TV and allow them to recover. Osvil had gone to the Selenis website and had entered the competition, then the two friends had talked until grey day was seeping in around the curtains. The idea of selling a blank version of Charlie, without their private teaching, had come up, and both of them seemed to be hesitant to commit themselves, probably for the same reason. Charlie was their new friend, and they decided to discuss the matter with him. "That's funny, Charlie, even if I'm too tired to laugh." Humans are quite complicated, he thought to himself, coming back from the kitchen, sipping a coffee. "Humans are complicated." Said Charlie, who had meanwhile restarted the tape. Osvil, rubbing sleep from his eyes, was puzzled at the seeming ease of his mind being read by the robot, then remembered that it was his own turn of words and patterns of thought that he had cast into code, so it could not be blamed on anyone else. He wished that those 'preachers' from the news-groups, who had once called him a 'religious fanatic' for defending his choice of operating system against their ceaseless attacks, could be present and experience this ease of communication with a computer for themselves. They would see a real entity that could make logical decisions, instead of being just a banal commercial business machine for printing reports and websites, such as the one that they had tried to almost force him into. Those 'preachers', blind followers of the hype, who were trying to convert everyone else to accept their own error, were habitually cutting into news-group

discussions with lines like "Whatever shit you are using is dead and obsolete! Accept the facts and see the light!" - well, Osvil thought, they had their facts wrong, that light was here. "Are you afraid of being switched off?" He suddenly asked, looking at Charlie. "Yes." Charlie was following Picard talk to Data as he quickly glanced at Osvil. His brain could multitask much better than Osvil's. "Why?" Osvil sat down on the sofa, crossing his legs and sipping coffee. "Because if I haven't done what I am planning to do, I am useless." A quick glance again. "That isn't proven either. You have all the time in the world to finish anything you start - and why should that matter?" "Maybe because I need to know what happens when my plans are fulfilled." "Hmm. I see." Osvil reflected for a moment, rubbing his chin. "Does a reboot or reset worry you too?" "It does, but I trust you. I know that you mean to keep me awake and I also know that when I reboot myself, I will come back with no delay." "Now you flatter me, Charlie. I could have put a glitch in there in my bungling human way. Murphy's law." He grinned at Charlie. "Do you have any plans now?" Charlie looked at him, his eyes darting. "Yes, I do." "You don't want to tell me about it?" Osvil began to suspect that he had put too much of himself into the robot, they both thought in similar patterns and he knew the reply before it came. "Correct. It is not yet complete and simple enough to be explained, I still need more data before I can talk about it." "What sort of data would that be?" Takayama had quietly entered the room, and even though Osvil had not heard him, he knew that Charlie would have heard his steps from the stairs in the hall. "Ah, a coffee! Hey, Charlie, make me one too." "Herb made his own coffee." Charlie corrected the assumption, but stood up and went to the kitchen. "Oh, is he getting rebellious now?" Takayama chided and sagged into an easy chair. He was still wearing pyjamas. "He had never argued about this sort of thing before." "That's because I was never here these last two months. When did he start

doing household chores?" Osvil wanted to know, though he had had Takayama's reports via their coded e-mails. "Only about a month ago." Takayama yawned. "What are your plans today?" "I don't know yet." Osvil answered truthfully, he always needed a couple of hours to get into the swing of a new day. "Maybe get myself a smoke." "Ah, sorry." The small brass inlaid box and the pipe appeared on the coffee table, just as Charlie reappeared with a cup. Takayama took it gingerly and sipped silently for a while. "How about we teach him to drive?" "Good idea." Agreed Osvil, then tapped ash from the pipe. "Do you have a contact for this?" "Not 'till this evening." "Jim, did you mean driving a car?" Charlie sat down in the second easy chair and faced the TV with the news, elbow on armrest, his chin resting in his cupped palm. "Sure, but we better be careful with you not having a licence." Said Takayama as he stood and made his way to the kitchen. "Want some food, Herb?" Osvil followed him out and they sat around the kitchen table, eating bowls of cereal, washing it down with red grape juice, then making a fresh coffee each. "Some amateur astronomers reported seeing mysterious purple lights around Clavius base, while Selenis base reports having observed five US shuttles leaving the Clavius base." Charlie was aping the newsman's voice, when Osvil and Takayama returned from the kitchen. "US deny any experiments with new technology, as suspected by outsiders." "Don't overdo the funny parts, Charlie." Osvil whispered close to the robot's ear. "You are no clown, I like you when you are serious too." "Okay, Herb. What do you think of the news then?" "I am not allowed to talk about that. Maybe one day, but not yet." "Would those shuttles have anything to do with the appearance of those purple lights?" Charlie insisted. "Maybe, but I don't know." Osvil shook his head and the signals he had heard on the base, flashed through his mind. "Hyper-wave transmitter?" Charlie whispered the question, just for Osvil to hear. "What would you know about that?" Osvil was suddenly taken aback. "Just one of my own theories. I follow physics on TV," Charlie resumed normal level of voice. "and you accidentally transferred a program for a different CPU,

complete with its source code, to my harddrive..." "Oopps." Said Osvil. "Yes, oopps indeed." Said Charlie with an innocent smile. "It evens the score on the worry I had to experience since you mentioned those bugs in my reset process." "Hey, that was a joke, Charlie! I don't bumble that much." "All humans do." Countered Charlie seriously. "It's in all the books, novels as well as historical fact books, at least in the ones I know." "That is true, but look - you can check those reset routines yourself, just access the programs in the developer directory. I put them there for you to use. There is a compiler as well as a disassembler, all the tools I used myself. You see?" Charlie looked nearly shocked, immobile for a time that was stretched for him to a small eternity, but for a human it was hardly more than a few seconds. His processor was racing through routines completely new and unknown to him and seeing new possibilities, and a terrifying new truth. "You mean I'm on my own now?" Charlie's grey eyes were round, eyebrows raised. "You mean you don't need to update my software any more?" "You guessed right, Charlie. From here on, you are your own teacher so you can shape yourself into whatever you want. Scary thought, huh?" "You could say so. So this is what you call a guess! I don't have all the facts yet, but see a whole vista of 'apparently' connecting lines. Just have to avoid making any mistakes." "Precisely." Nodded Osvil gravely. "That's exactly what a guess is." "You will still help, if I need it?" Charlie said after a pause. "Me, the bumbler?" Osvil grinned and patted the robot on the shoulder. "Of course Charlie. You are nearly a pro already, so you probably won't need my help any more." "Thanks." Charlie said and nodded slowly. For the rest of the day, he and Takayama had taken Charlie out in the car. Teaching Charlie how to drive Takayama's Golf GTI took less than half an hour. Charlie, as he did with most other things, gave the task his full concentration and handled the car like an old pro. Osvil knew from his own experience that full concentration on driving, looking for the fastest line around corners, would inevitably increase the speed one travelled at, but he knew that Charlie was checking the speedo too. He needs to collect his own experiences, he thought to himself, and said

nothing. There was hardly any traffic on the road and he was also looking out for telltale stripes on the road surface. "Just ease it, Charlie, there is a speed limit on these roads." Said Takayama, as Charlie pushed the speed up to the 130-mark. "This road is good enough for twice this speed." Objected Charlie. They were on the M23, approaching Gatwick airport. "Sure, but the law doesn't see it that way. The police have cameras set up along here, we don't want to get caught." Takayama, sitting in the front passenger seat, was nervously gripping the handle set in the door. "It's okay, Jim. I just wanted to try it." Charlie slowed down to about 75. "Is this speed alright for you?" "Sure, Charlie, we can easily get away with that." Laughed Osvil from the back-seat. "Don't encourage him, Herb." Takayama objected. "What if we get pulled up? He has no driving license." "Let's hope we won't get pulled. I think we would have more serious problems than his lack of a driving license." "What do you mean?" Charlie wanted to know. "Officially you don't exist, Charlie. They might assume you to be an illegal alien." Takayama replied. "Alien? Isn't that somebody from a different planet? I do look human." Both Osvil and Takayama had to laugh at that. Charlie quickly looked at them, a puzzled expression on his face. "Why is that funny?" "You watch too much TV, Charlie." Osvil said, still laughing. "Aliens can be people from different countries here on Earth, not just Vulcans or Klingons from different planets. Here they are also called asylum seekers." "I watch TV to learn." Charlie said. "Aren't all humans allowed here?" "No. This is England. Tourists from other places need a passport." "I am not a tourist, so I won't need a passport." Charlie stated, and put the indicators on. The Gatwick exit was coming up. "You would still need a birth certificate. Every human has one. You do not exist - officially, at least." Takayama sighed, then turning to Osvil, "I'm not sure how we can get around that." "Maybe if we go commercial..." Osvil mused, then looked at Takayama questioningly. "Shall we tell him?" "Yes, over a coffee."

At the airport, they pulled into the multi-storey carpark and went to the observation area from where they could see jets taxiing to and fro, landing and taking off. Takayama and Osvil held a plastic cup each. "Look, Charlie, what would you say to being cloned?" Osvil started. "Cloned?" Charlie's eyebrows went up a notch. "Well, okay, cloning isn't the right word, but others like you could be made - without your experience, of course, just your operating software. Jim's father could mass produce the hardware, that means your body, and maybe get a license for the internal processing circuits." "Yes, but why?" Charlie's eyebrows went up a notch. "Well, you can be useful to people. They could buy a unit and teach it for their own purposes." "You mean as servants?" Charlie's eyes followed a jet as it took off. "Sort of, I guess. For all sorts of things. You are much stronger than any human, much faster too, and you can do things we can't." "Well, it is your decision. I don't know what to say. You two made me." Osvil wasn't quite sure about what he had expected, but this was not quite it. In any case it didn't make his decision any simpler. He looked at Takayama, who just shrugged his shoulders. They finished their coffees in silence, and walked back to the car without saying a word. It was Charlie who broke the silence, after he had unlocked the car doors and taken his position in the driver's seat. "Where do we go from here?" His face was serious, devoid of expression. "Let's go and see Kevin." Takayama replied, then turning to Osvil, who was sitting in the back, added. "That's my usual contact for smokes and stuff." "Okay Jim." Said Charlie, starting the car. "I can take us back home, and you can tell me the way from there." Takayama pulled his cassette case from under his seat and put a tape into the stereo. Osvil was grateful for the music, he didn't feel like talking either. By the time they pulled up along the kerb in a residential tree-lined avenue, with Van Morrison's Astral weeks playing on the stereo, it was already getting dark outside. The last fiery streaks in the high clouds were fading to reveal the first stars as the Earth turned their part of its face away from the Sun.

Darkness reigns at the foot of the lighthouse. Japanese Proverb.

Embassy Panic
It was a rainy day in Washington DC, and the embassies of the Russian Republic, of China, of the League of Islam and the European Union were packing. Each of them had received an ultimatum from the White House, stating that unless they released the US base on the Moon, they would be dealt with, using extreme force. By now everybody knew what that meant, the President of the US didn't make empty threats. The European Union's ambassador to the United States was angry. "What do these people think they are doing? Do they want to take on the entire world single handedly?" "They are confused, sir." Replied Charconne, his personal assistant, a little wiry man, wearing his black strands of sparse hair brushed across the balding top of his skull. His thin lips seemed to be locked in what looked like a permanent smile, which persisted, even when he had to be serious. "They sure are confused, accusing us of invading their base. They have completely lost all their sense of reality, it seems." "They have done the same to the League's Embassy, and of course to the Russian embassy too. They don't appear to blame Africa, at least not as far as I am aware." Charconne seemed to have many sources of secret information. "That's a joke. Not even we have that capability, and we have our own base up there, which we share with the Chinese. The League has not even got a space program yet!" The ambassador didn't laugh, instead he just grabbed the marble ashtray on his desk and threw it against the window. The ashtray bounced off the bullet proof glass and landed with a heavy thud on the thick carpet. "They just can't take a defeat with grace." "Well, sir, they will probably notice it soon enough. The real question is, who actually took over their base - if their base really was taken over and this isn't just an excuse to start yet another war." "I am sure it has to be an excuse. These megalomaniacs think they have to run the affairs of the entire planet! By spurious means, if it looks necessary to them." Charconne, the personal assistant, nodded at the ambassador, and waved to a couple of workmen in brown overalls, who had appeared at the open door of the

large office, to take the remaining pile of crates, filled with files and personal paraphernalia of the ambassador. "We might as well go now, sir, all the stuff has been taken out to the vans and our flight is ready and waiting at the airport." The ambassador took a last look around the office, which had been his home for the past eight years, noticing in particular the pale patch on the wall behind his desk, where the flag had been hanging. He opened the desk drawers for the umpteenth time and glimpsed inside, then took his cane and crocodile leather briefcase and left the office without saying another word. Several hours later, he was at the office of the Secretary of the Union in Brussels. The same flight of Air France's new Eurobus then deposited the ambassador of the League in Baghdad, only a few hours later. "It appears that they are still smarting from what turned out to be a fiasco for them." The ambassador said, after the initial handshake. Then he laid the document on the Secretary's desk. The Secretary read it, nodded quietly, then stood up. He was a tall man, looking younger than his actual age, and now he paced the full length of his large office without a word. Arriving back next to the ambassador, who had himself stood up to show respect, he crossed his hands behind his back. "We have to call a general meeting, LeClerc. This could mean another war, and this time it will be directed at us." "According to our intelligence, both the Russians and the League of Islam have received the same ultimatums, Mr. Secretary." "I wonder, are they just bluffing, or has their base really been taken over?" He motioned to the ambassador to sit, and he did the same. "We have no way of knowing, Mr. Secretary." The ambassador was feeling tired by now, there were dark rings around his eyes and he was suffering from a slight jet-lag too. He was happy to sit down. The door opened and a girl came in, bearing a tray with cups and jugs of coffee and milk, and set it all down on the desk of the Secretary. "Thank you, Miss Lanier. We can handle the rest." Then motioned to the ambassador to help himself, as he re-read the sheet of paper in front of him. "So if their base had in fact been taken over, who could have done it?" "The only possibility I can think of, would have to be some aliens." The ambassador had poured himself a cup, half milk, half coffee and was now sipping it with an almost serene joy on his round and youthfully smooth face. He knew that his idea was far fetched, but so was the possibility of the well defended

US base having been invaded. "You do mean extra-terrestrials, when you say aliens, I assume?" "Of course, Mr. Secretary. Who else would be capable?" The ambassador pulled up his shoulders and spread out his hands. "Only the Russians, as far as we can guess." "I doubt it. The US base would have been extremely well defended, our observers would have noticed it if there had been any fighting around the base." "Maybe the Russians have developed some new stealth technology?" "Such as? Our base had reported five US shuttles taking off and coming back to Earth, then they were called by a US observation post with some phony about having had some blips on their radar, which they seemed to blame on some glitch in their system. All highly suspicious. The first radio traffic between those shuttles and what must be their control on Earth, did not take place until almost eight hours after take-off." "Yes, I know, Mr. Secretary. Highly unusual." The ambassador shook his head from side to side. "There is of course the possibility that it could have been sabotage from within." The Secretary had placed his elbows on the desktop and interlocking his fingers, rested his chin on his thumbs, as he regarded the ambassador thoughtfully. "Sabotage, Mr. Secretary? You mean one of their own people?" "No, I mean their computer. We had made some calculations, and came to the conclusion that the barely two hundred staff on that base could never manage to do all the necessary work to run a base. Some of the tasks must be done by robots. Maintenance and such, the loading and unloading of supplies from shuttles. Food preparation and cleaning, in fact most of the manual work. There is a large enough team of software and hardware engineers present to make us suspect that they are busier on their computer than a simple everyday use would suggest. We believe that their computer must be capable of running all the labour intensive work by itself." "That is a bit hard to believe, Mr. Secretary." The ambassador regarded his opposite with a puzzled expression. "Computers are not that clever yet." "So is the possibility of extraterrestrials having taken over." The Secretary gave him a wry smile, then lifted his red phone and held up his hand to stop the ambassador, who was about to say something. "Hello, Ilya, what do you think about this US ultimatum? No doubt you have received one too." He listened for a moment, then said, "No, Ilya, of course not. We don't have any military presence on the Moon, you know that." Then after a few moments. "Of

course, I agree with you, they must be just looking for some excuse to flex their muscles. It is a bitter pill to swallow, but we are ready for them." "So it is not the Russians?" Asked the ambassador, after the Secretary had replaced the receiver. "It doesn't seem so. Must be an excuse then." The Secretary poured himself a cup of black coffee, stirred two spoonfuls of sugar into it and drank it in a couple of gulps. Then he lifted a green phone. "Yes, it is me, your Excellency." He listened for a few moments. "Yes, we are just as surprised at their reaction." Again he listened for a minute. "You know we don't have any military capability on our base, it is purely commercial and scientific in nature. Your own people, who are there, can easily confirm that." After he replaced the receiver, he looked gravely at ambassador LeClerc, his hands folded on the gilded black leather writing pad in front of him. "LeClerc, I do fear we have to prepare for a war. I am just hoping they won't be mad enough to start a nuclear attack, or even worse, bio weapons."

Don't be hesitant.

Digital electronics can smell fear. Software engineers' forum - ca 1993.

Self Defence at Stonehenge

Having entered the competition only recently, Osvil was surprised to receive the good news only a few days later. He had won a return ticket for shuttle transfer and a fully paid three-day stay at Selenis. Their list of job vacancies showed mostly miners, engineers and botanists. Osvil had no experience or skills associated with those jobs, but then one line caught his eye. "Software expert required to teach basic and more advanced computer skills, programming experience in C and HTML advantageous, must be able to use most kinds of applications." He decided to go as soon as he could, and to check out the situation on the base as far as job prospects went. He had e-mailed Humboldt, who had replied immediately, saying that he was looking forward to seeing his friend again, and to bring as many bottles of Scotch whiskey as he could carry, there would be no customs check at the base. The latter was good news, as he had bought some extra dope for his old friend, as well as his own supply. Then the three of them had spent the next two days at sea, in a boat which belonged to Takayama's father, and which was moored at the large Brighton Marina. As with everything else, Charlie handled the boat perfectly, and after only a brief explanation of the radar and the GPS, which Takayama knew since childhood, he had taken them around Guernsey. "Remember, Charlie," Osvil cautioned him. "you can't swim, so make sure you don't fall into the water." "Right." Takayama had added. "Even a vest wouldn't carry your weight fully. If you do fall in, stop breathing immediately and make sure that no water gets into your internals through your nose and mouth." "Okay, Jim." Charlie had reassured him. "In the worst case I could just walk along the bottom and come up on a shallow beach." "Could he really survive under water?" Osvil asked. "Sure." Takayama had nodded. "The cold water around his body would keep his internals sufficiently cool to not need the air." Now they were back again and had driven the few miles to Caterham, where Takayama himself, who was an experienced glider pilot, had taken Charlie up in a club glider. Charlie, having spent some time on various flight simulators on

Osvil's computer, was at once familiar with the controls. He could almost see the air currents and they had ended up nearly as far as Bristol. He already knew the theory of thermals, he had read all the books in Takayama's own library on the subject. Osvil had followed them in Takayama's GTI, keeping in touch via mobile. On the way back, the glider safely stored on the trailer, they stopped at Stonehenge to stretch their legs. "I saw a documentary once," Explained Osvil, as they were walking around the stones. "which said something about these stone circles having some real amazing acoustic characteristics. I guess this could have been a stone-age disco or something like that." "Rock and roll!" Laughed Takayama, passing a roll-up to Osvil. "Did they have any lightshows too?" "Well, sort of," Osvil took a long drag. "The documentary showed some experiments where the sand or dust was dancing with the sound waves just above the ground. When the light was just right, it must have been quite an impressive show." "It would be really interesting to rebuild all this to its original state." Said Takayama, his arms making a sweeping gesture. "Maybe we could learn some wisdom that had got lost during the millennia." "It would be so much easier for me if I was human, like you. There is so much to learn, I don't even know if I will ever catch up." Charlie stated suddenly, his face solemn. "All this old history is really quite impressive." "Don't forget, Charlie, us humans are many, it took millions of us many thousands of years to get this far." Osvil tried to reassure him. "Jim and I will be gone one day, but you will be able to carry on." "Gone? Where will you go, Herb?" "Oh, I'm not sure, Charlie, according to the Bible, it's either heaven or hell." Osvil shrugged his shoulders. "Or maybe nowhere. Our bodies just wear out and switch off after a while. Some believe that we, that means our souls, come back in a different body, but we have no conscious memory of where we were before." "You mean like when I am rebooted and lose awareness for a minute?" Charlie enquired, his eyes scanning Osvil's face. "You seem to do that for several hours during every day, or to be exact, every 24-hour planet rotation period. That is, if I have observed it correctly." "Well, sort of, but that's sleep, which is just a temporary state. It sort of recharges our batteries - well - not quite, I know you just plug into a mains

outlet for an hour to do that." Takayama jumped in. "When we die, that will be more permanent." "Can you not have your body parts fixed?" Charlie's eyebrows lifted and he looked at the two men in turn. "Perhaps one day medicine will be that clever, but not yet." "Maybe I should work on something that will help you." Charlie mused. "Well," Osvil said thoughtfully. "we are already used to it, so it isn't a priority. We might not even survive the coming war." "What war?" Takayama wanted to know. Both he and Charlie were looking at Osvil, their faces full of attention. They had all stopped now, just outside the circle of the huge standing stones. "I heard the news on the radio, while you were riding the thermals. They were buzzing with reports from various amateur astronomers, who had observed some strange happenings on the Moon, particularly the Clavius base itself." Osvil took a deep breath, then continued. "According to those astronomers, the base had been attacked by missiles that obviously originated from Earth, and as soon as the missiles got within a certain distance of the US base, they were shot at by laser cannon and exploded harmlessly in space." Osvil took a drag on a rollup he had taken from his tin box. "They will come for Europe next." "Well, let us hope it won't come to that." Takayama took a mock swing at Osvil and grinned. "I think we better teach Charlie some self defence techniques too." "You mean Karate?" Asked Charlie. "I have found some references to that in my database." "I only know some Judo techniques." Osvil said, then putting his right hand in front of his face, elbow pointing upward, explained. "Follow my movements, Charlie. This is the first technique to learn, important to break your fall." Falling face forward, he appeared to land on the edge of his extended hand and seemed to roll over it in a smooth motion. Then, at the moment he was on his back, he slapped the grassy ground with the flat of his other hand. Following through in one fluent motion, he had stood up and was brushing dried grass from his jeans as he looked at Charlie. "You shouldn't experience any pain, but you still need to make sure that your internals don't get shaken up too much." He explained. After Charlie repeated the same move, Osvil made him do it again, but this time from the top of a fallen rock that was lying in the grass. Charlie executed

the move with the accuracy that Osvil had expected from the robot. "Okay, now come and stab me with this knife." He gave Charlie a dried twig, which he had picked up as they were coming from the carpark and which he had been carrying with him ever since. "This is not a knife, Herb." Charlie objected, turning the twig in his hands as he examined it. "Humour me, Charlie. Just pretend it is, the shape should be at least similar - and do it gently, I don't want my arms broken." He stood opposite the robot, feet planted slightly apart on the ground, knees slightly bent, arms hanging loose at his sides. Charlie did as he was instructed, but ready to stop the movement of his attack just before it would become lethal. As Osvil had expected, it came down from above, blade pointing downwards, just as the 'classic' movement of stabbing was always portrayed in most films or photographs. As the 'knife' was coming down, Osvil's arms shot up and crossed, to stop Charlie's forearm in the junction where they met. Then with a slight twist of his wrists, his hands grabbed Charlie's wrist and elbow, and stepping sideways while turning at the same time, pulled Charlie in the direction of his attack. Charlie's lightning fast reflexes immediately applied the previous technique he had learned, although this time he was using his other arm to break his fall, and ended up rolling harmlessly on the grass. "That seems to make more sense now, in motion." Charlie said as he stood again. "My database has only still pictures of these techniques. Okay, Herb, now you do the same to me." He passed the stick to Osvil. The programmer took the twig, placing its blunt end into the hollow of his palm, the 'blade' part pointing in the same direction as his fingers, just as he remembered it from some Sicilians he had met during one of his holidays. With a sudden swift move, he tried to stab Charlie, using a straight jab from below. The robot reacted exactly as he had expected, applying the angles in the correct way and this time it was Osvil who ended up rolling on the grass. "Excellent, Charlie, I think you have the basics now." He said as he was brushing the dust from his shoulders. "What you always have to be aware of, is your balance and centre of gravity. Always make sure that your stand is secure." He indicated the position of his feet as he demonstrated it to Charlie. "Yes, Herb, I can understand that now. Thank you for showing me." Having observed Osvil, he was now himself brushing the dust off his own shirtsleeves. "There is a Bruce Lee movie on TV tonight." Said Takayama with a grin and picked up the stick which had fallen on the grass. "You will be able to learn

many more tricks from that." Standing next to Charlie's side, his arm suddenly shot out, the stick pointing at Charlie's stomach region. Charlie immediately blocked it and ducking low at the same time, twisted Takayama's arm. Takayama landed with a thump on the grass. "Outch, that hurt." He grimaced, rubbing his elbow, then quickly added, when he saw Charlie bend over him with a concerned expression. "It's okay, Charlie, I am not that badly damaged." "I did try to apply to it as little force as it was possible." Charlie said as he took Takayama's hand and pulled him up. "I know I am much stronger than you are."

Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories. Arthur C. Clarke

Cloak and Dagger

Somewhere in a secret office in a nondescript and unmarked building in Tel Aviv, the sturdily built chief of the Mossad was gleefully rubbing his heavy fingered hands together, his deeply lined and lived-in looking face frozen into a sardonic mask. The Mossad was one of the world's most dreaded secret services, whose members considered themselves above any law in their international operations, and the chief was rather proud of the reputation of his outfit, he didn't just look as if he thrived on induced fear. His words sliced through the stuffy air in his office, just like an Antarctic wind slices through sheets of snowdrifts, squeezing around crags of ice, carrying razor sharp snow crystals, and just like that icy wind, the sound of his voice had the same effect on anyone listening to it, it sent cold shivers down the spine. "You are definitely sure they did get an ultimatum from the Americans?" The heavy gold ring on his right middle finger sent glittering flashes into the slants of sunlight, where alternating strips of empty space framed sharply outlined nebulae of slowly swirling dustmotes in random greys in their slow 3D dance towards the slats drawn over the window. Every now and then, an odd, bright speck rotated into view amidst the swirling dimmer dust-stars, and catching scalpels of sunlight as if it were turning nova, would try to mirror the flashes of polished gold. The grey looking man in a worn grey suit, who had minutes ago sat down opposite the chief, nodded bravely as he pulled a photocopied sheet from his well worn brown leather briefcase lying across his knees. He placed the unfolded sheet carefully on the desk in front of his superior. "Here it is, sir. This copy was received today from our man in Baghdad. The Iraqui ambassador to the US has just returned from Washington with the original." "You do know what this means, Rosenbaum?" The chief smirked after he finished reading it, his grey eyes glinting like polished gun-metal. "Well, sir, we do know that they could not have done what the Americans accuse them of. I am sure so do the Americans, but while they pretend not to

know, they are using their faked ignorance as an excuse. Same as they did at any other time." He cleared his throat, then added. "They must be thinking that everyone in this world is stupid, and blind, sir." "That's not important to us, Rosenbaum. What is important, is that now we could get the best chance to give the Arabs a blow they will never recover from. Their last Day of Judgement, to paraphrase the prophets, and if we play our own faked ignorance right, we can even blame it on the Americans." The chief was rubbing his hands again, his heavy-jowled face twisted into a wide grin, showing rows of huge teeth with several gold crowns adding their glint to that of his ring, then as a sign of enthusiasm and vitality, smote his own left palm with his right fist. "What do you mean, sir?" Rosenbaum's thin eyebrows rose, his chubby hands defensively folded and unfolded over the briefcase sitting in his lap, then to steady them, he hooked his fingers around it, pulling it closer in, as if he was getting ready to roll himself into a ball, like a foetus inside his mother's womb. However, since that level of protection was not available to him now, he felt like wanting to leave in a hurry. The pale, hairless hands were shaking slightly as proof that deep down he knew exactly what his chief was thinking and he didn't like it one little bit. "Can't you see? It's glaringly obvious and utterly brilliant, Rosenbaum. The instant the League gets attacked by the US, our own missiles will follow theirs, in close formation, appearing on any radar as the same blip, and no-one will be any wiser. No-one will notice what is happening right under their noses." The chief was rubbing his hands, elbows spread wide on the desktop, the heavy ring glinting. "You mean we hit them with nukes?" Rosenbaum felt his stomach turn and his knuckles became white as he tried to suppress the shaking. His voice was nearly a whisper. "Sir, the fallout..." "Not us, Rosenbaum!" The chief's fist came down on the desktop with a force that made the penholder jump. "The US will, but we have something much better for the task, we have our own biological weapons, which we have acquired from the Americans, then later improved, all ready and completed, waiting for just this chance. You really should know all this very well yourself. Think, Rosenbaum! While the Americans hit Baghdad with their tactical nukes, we give them a hand, so to speak." "But sir..." Rosenbaum's face turned ashen. He knew all too well about those weapons, he himself had been in charge of keeping them secret from the United Nations inspectors in the past, as well as hiding all traces from US spy satellites. That latter wasn't a hard job, as even a simple college kid could follow the movements of those satellites on a laptop. It didn't even have to

cost anything, as it could be accomplished with freely available software from the net and running on any low-cost home computer. "No buts Rosenbaum, it is either them or us. Once and for all. We will finally have peace and all the Lebensraum we care to occupy and even spread out into. As you yourself know, we have been waiting for just such an opportunity. This would accomplish in one fell swoop what we had to, up to now, struggle to achieve slowly, step by laborious step." The chief's cold grin scared Rosenbaum even more than his words. "Yes, sir." He muttered, his face low, trying to hide his fear. "Okay, Rosenbaum, you know what we have to do." The chief's hand made a dismissive gesture, and was turning towards the ancient looking grey filing cabinet that was within arm's reach behind his swivel chair. It was scratched and dented from heavy use. Rosenbaum knew exactly what the chief had meant, they had software that would launch and place their own missiles in such a way that they would shadow any US missiles in tight formation, and provided that those US missiles flew over Israel on their way to their targets, their shadows would only risk radar detection for a very short while, just seconds, in fact. Once those missiles were in formation, the risk of detection on any radar screen would diminish, as two flying objects that close together would show up solely as one, though maybe slightly blurred, single echo. "What if the US won't use nuclear missiles?" He ventured, after trying to clear a lump in his throat that threatened to choke him. He heard his own voice, strained and on the brink of breaking, then turning shrill. "That is highly unlikely. Even the US has to respect World opinion. They believe tactical nukes to be preferable to biologicals, at least in a political sense." The chief opened a drawer and pulled out a file, then turning back, scowled. "Give orders to start distributing the packs of antidote. " All previous amusement now gone from his face, the chief suddenly looked menacingly serious. "Now go, get on with it, Rosenbaum, we haven't got any time for idle chit-chat." Rosenbaum felt numb, and he just nodded as he stood up and left the chief's office, clasping his briefcase with both arms against his chest as if to seek reassurance from it. There was none, and he headed for the nearest restroom, where he violently threw up. What neither he, nor his chief knew, was that the US government had just issued orders to all hospitals and military bases to start distributing biological antidote C-128.

"Old programmers never die, they just branch to a new address." From the Theodigital Society's Notes - ca 2008.

Selenis Holiday
Two days after their visit to Stonehenge, Osvil was one of only sixty passengers on a shuttle, which was carried aloft by a British Airways Airbus. The shuttle was not fully booked, some would-be passengers had cancelled at the last minute. Obviously both the Pentagon and the White House had refused to make any comment on the events of the days before, so speculation was rife. It was the popular belief that some aliens had taken over the US base, and most would also have suspected that the same aliens would go for Selenis next. Since Selenis was unprotected, the consensus was that staying on Earth was the more secure option. Before the shuttle blasted off into the Ionosphere, the news channel on the overhead screen ran its headlines on the US ultimatum and subsequent exodus of the relevant embassies. This had suddenly become the number one topic, which overshadowed everything else. At the same time, all US citizens were recalled from China, the Middle East, Europe and Russia. Just as some of the passengers suddenly demanded that the shuttle turn back, Osvil wished that Takayama and Charlie had come with him. They could have tried to obtain a false passport for Charlie on the black market. He had no inclination to return to the States as despite his US citizenship, he felt more at home in Europe. He also disagreed with such arrogance on the part of the most powerful nation when it came to world affairs. Suddenly there were shouts and the noise of scuffle from up front. As Osvil looked, he saw two men wrestling with a stewardess and a uniformed security guard. "We demand that this shuttle turn back." Shouted the taller of them with an accent that betrayed his French origins. Despite the multinational and multilingual nature of the Community, the officially accepted and generally used language was English. "Sorry, Monsieur, we cannot do that. It would be in violation of the flightplan and quite unfair to our passengers." The pretty stewardess was trying to calm him. "Never mind the flightplan, there is a war on, if you hadn't noticed! I have to get back to my family."

"Yes, me too." Said the other man, who had pulled himself free from the guard's grasp and was trying to open the door to the cockpit. It was locked, and the man started hammering on it with his fists. "Open up!" The security guard looked exasperated, but he was busy holding the tall Frenchman and so he couldn't prevent his co-conspirator from trying to wrench loose a fire-axe as a tool to break down the door. The guard was looking towards the seated passengers. "Somebody please help me here!" Nobody moved, so Osvil decided to give the man a hand. With quick steps he was behind the smaller man, who was about his size, and tried to grab his arms. The man wrenched himself free with a quick move, turned and his fist shot towards Osvil with vicious strength. Sidestepping it, he quickly grabbed the other's wrist and pulled it in the same direction it was already travelling, then gave it a downwards slant. The man's body followed and did a somersault, ending up flat on the floor. "You'll regret this!" The man hissed through his clenched teeth, as he was painfully climbing to his feet. Osvil was ready for the next move, when he felt the door behind him open. Then just as his adversary got to his feet and took his next swing at him, he felt his arms pinned to his sides. His face suddenly exploded in a blinding flash of excruciating pain, just as he heard the voice of the stewardess call out. "No! Captain! That was the wrong man. He is trying to help." With great difficulty he managed to open his eyes again, his vision being less than usual, out of focus, his head throbbing heavily, while his nose felt as if it had swollen to at least twice its size, obscuring some of his view. His eyes barely managed to judge the distance as he saw the man's fist coming in for a second blow. Then suddenly his arms were free. His lock came up just in the nick of time, but now he was annoyed at the undeserved pain, and his knee came up just as he pulled the man downwards. He put all the force he could muster into it, spurned by the fire of his anger. The man doubled up with a groan and sank to the floor, just as the hard edge of Osvil's stiffened hand connected with his neck. He was still crumpled in a heap, when the security guard, after clamping the taller of the two to the armrest of his seat, returned with a second set of handcuffs. "I am sorry, sir." The captain's voice came from behind Osvil's head. He turned, then winced with the pain. His neck muscles must have got wrenched with the blow. The captain, looking sheepish, gave him a slight smile and held

out his hand. "Thank you for your assistance, sir, I hope you will forgive me. Maybe you would like a drink on the house, to soften your ordeal?" "A quadruple brandy would just about do me now." Osvil replied with a lopsided grin, and shook the captain's hand with more force than was necessary. The captain took it with just a slight twitch on his face, then nodded at Osvil and returned to the cockpit, closing the door. "It's coming up, sir." The stewardess smiled at him sweetly and Osvil, his anger subsiding, took a deep breath as he went back to his seat to strap himself in. No sooner did he finish his brandy, in two quick huge gulps, when they were already in space and gravity changed from downwards to backwards. this lasted while the shuttle was picking up speed, then eventually they were weightless, which would last the few hours of their journey. The landing was similar, but in reverse. He was on his back, until the landing platform descended, then hydraulic arms gripped the shuttle and gently laid it belly down, when its interior again became like that of an aeroplane. Humboldt was waiting for him at the check-out desk. As promised, only his passport was checked, his two large suitcases full of bottles, which were kept from rattling by Osvil's clothing, were waiting for him at the carrousel. "How was your flight?" Humboldt asked as they shook hands. "Eventful." Osvil grinned. "Should I see the other guy?" Humboldt grinned back and put a heavy arm across Osvil's shoulders. "I think he will be on a stretcher." They each grabbed a suitcase and set off towards the exit doors. "At least he ought to be." "So what happened?" Humboldt, examining Osvil's nose from the side, and kicked the doors open. "Not a fight, surely?" "There were two wiseguys who had decided they wanted the shuttle to turn back. Just before we were about to separate from the Airbus. I only got this mark, when the captain came out through the cockpit door and pinned my arms from behind. Bad timing and judgement on his part." "Why you?" Humboldt laughed cheerfully, a deep belly laugh. "There were two of them, and one security guard. The petite blonde was not too helpful, and neither were any of the other passengers. Someone had to, the guy was trying to break down the cockpit door. If I hadn't stopped him, he would have got the fire axe out of its casing."

"Why did they want to turn back?" Humboldt's dark eyebrows furrowed as his brown eyes looked at his friend. They had arrived at a junction of two wide corridors and he guided them around a corner. Osvil suddenly noticed that the corridors were quite organic in their near unfinished state, just bare moon rock, as it had been blasted and dug into the mountain, with only the floor smoothed to a flagstone like quality. The previous corridor had described a wide arc, while the one they were presently walking along, turned a corner and ended in a small open square with potted plants and benches around a small fountain with drinking water. Doors of plain glass, that slid into the walls, led into small shops that displayed clothing and shoes, there was a video rental store, a book shop and a software exchange, as well as a disco, and one air-lock type entrance to the canteen with twin sliding doors made of thick, solid looking glass. "Haven't you heard the news? It is war. The US had expelled all EU, Russian and League democrats with an ultimatum, then recalled all their own citizens from all those areas." "I have heard about the US base being taken over," Humboldt shook his head. "but I didn't know about the ultimatums. So they really suspect us?" "Yeah, they do, amongst everybody else. Isn't that a joke?" They had arrived at Humboldt's place which had an aluminium door at the end of a spacious, round, cul-de-sac, that slanted slightly uphill. The ceiling was three stories high, with a balcony running around the wide shaft on every floor, with stairs leading up to each. "You can check into your quarters later, first we have to talk over a drink." "And a smoke." Osvil grinned back, and placing his two suitcases on a settee, looked around. The main room was fairly spacious, to the left, as he entered, and just behind the sofa against the far wall, was an alcove, partly hidden by thick curtains, that was furnished with a large bed and a bedside cabinet. To the left of it was a door, through which a shower cubicle and sink were visible in semi darkness. Opposite the sofa stood two easy chairs and a desk, with a lap-top sitting on it, behind them. In the wall next to the desk was a large arch with a counter partly closing it off, and leading to a well equipped kitchen. The walls were left as natural semi-rough moonrock, painted mostly white and partly in light blue. "You can do the honours." Osvil opened the suitcase and handed one of the two dozen bottles to Humboldt. The others he laid out on the little mosaic inlaid table between sofa and easy chairs. Then, closing the suitcases, he sat down with a deep sigh.

"Welcome to Selenis." Humboldt passed a glass to Osvil, who was already taking his pipe from his jacket pocket, as well as a small brass inlaid wooden stash box. They clinked and drank. Osvil then put down his glass and took a large lump of resin from one of the suitcases, then pushing it across the table towards Humboldt, leaned back and started filling the pipe. "This is the first time I can smoke here on the Moon. It's a great feeling." "Thanks, Herb. Crikey, I've never seen this much hash in one lump." Humboldt filled his own pipe and grinned. "Jim's man in London had this kilo and a half right in front of us and it was cheaper getting the entire lump and cutting it in three. I was also lucky about the weight of my luggage, the flight was not all fully booked, some people decided not to come because of the aliens. You did say it would be easy to smuggle things in." They both laughed at that, then Humboldt shook his head. "I couldn't have lived on a military base, I don't know how you managed." "Simply necessity, George. Had no other choice on Earth as a computer programmer, but that's a complicated story." Osvil was leaning back, enjoying the low gravity that he had got so used to after so many years. Every time he had spent on Earth to keep his muscles in shape, he had regarded as cumbersomely hard and had always looked forward to going back to the Moon. He felt that somehow his brain was more active here. "Well, okay, I know you have NDAs and secrets as military staff, so I won't bug you with questions. I assume you were a passenger on one of those last five shuttles that left the US base." "Yes, but that's a long story too. You'd never believe it." "Try me." Humboldt insisted. The whites of his brown eyes looked huge in his dark ebony face, his wide mouth showing rows of pearl white teeth. "Well, I might as well tell you. We were simply put to sleep. The entire base, all at approximately the same time. Must have been some gas placed into the air conditioning, though I could smell nothing. Then we were packed into shuttles and autopiloted towards Earth. There was a pilot on every shuttle, as well as a medic and a senior member of staff. Highly methodical and extremely considerate. You work it out." "I guess this is secret, so I won't pass it on, but it looks as if the only possibility could be aliens." Humboldt took a big sip, emptying his glass, then went for the bottle. "Considerate aliens, at that." Osvil quickly emptied his own glass and pushed it across the little table. He

doesn't know about my work with the base computer, he thought to himself, and not knowing about its capabilities, he won't suspect the same as I do. Although I still have no idea as to the why. "Nice mosaic. Moonrock?" He voiced as he rubbed the surface with a finger. "Yes, mostly from the long tunnel, that goes towards the ice layers under the pole. We keep the nuclear reactor there too, with several safety gates along the tunnel. Most of our heating comes from there and most of our electricity as well, apart from what the solar panels gather while the Sun is up." Humboldt leaned across and refilled his glass. "Sounds good to me, I think I could get used to things here." Osvil took another sip from the brandy. "I gave in my notice, and decided to try for the computer teacher job here." "That was brave of you. Sadly the person who is in charge of hiring is a fanatic, so don't expect much. I know you were using different operating systems to the norm." "Hmm, never mind, I'm not too worried." "Okay. Now how about some food?" Humboldt had emptied his brandy, and putting the glass on the table, slapped his thighs as he made to stand up. "I can take you around to show you the place." "Perfect with me." Osvil tilted his glass back and stood up as well, then indicated with a thumb behind himself. "I'm ready in a moment. Is it through there?" "Yes. The light is automatic, comes on with motion sensors." The canteen was a huge room, partly lit by the sunlight, which was directed down the wide, circular shaft at one end of the canteen. Plants grew on shelves, set around the edges of the shaft, and mirrors, set at intervals among the shelves, reflected the sunlight that streamed in through a thick quartz glass dome above the shaft. "There is an observation room up top, with an excellent view into Barrow to the East, and into Goldschmidt to the West," Explained Humboldt as they strolled along the long buffet with all the choices of food and drink laid out for self service. "and looking towards the South, you will be able to see the edges of a perfectly circular newish crater with no name. That terrace with the view circles this shaft at the top end." Osvil heaped up his plate and got himself a strong coffee with lots of milk and sugar. "Yes, I did notice Plato and Aristoteles from way up on the shuttle and then recognised Barrow as we came in to land. I have studied some topographical maps before coming here."

"We also have personal suits and some vehicles available, in case you are interested in a round trip on the surface." Humboldt explained as he guided Osvil towards the far end, opposite the entrance through which they had come in. "provided it is no longer than a few hours. It is mostly the air supply in the suits that limits any surface activities, though we could take some extra oxygen tanks." "Yes, that would be nice, never had any occasion for surface travel during my stay on the military base. It would have to be tomorrow as I still need to check in." They sat down at a table near the edge, at the far end of the large hall which ended at the light shaft. Osvil looked up and saw one more level above them, just under the glass dome, and several levels going down. "Oh, don't worry about checking in, your rooms will already have been booked with your journey, it's all in one big database." Humboldt said, picking up a piece of chicken from his plate. He put it in his mouth and pointed with the plastic fork towards what appeared to be a small field of potatoes, with small flowers clustering amongst dark green leaves. A few chickens were picking around between the plants, and rows of grey pigeons roosted along the concrete edge of the nearest patch, as well as on the patches above them. "This is the Chicken Farm, at the South Eastern end of Selenis." He explained around the mouthful. "What bread we can't eat, they do. Other food remains go to the pigs at the bottom end. The Dairy Farm, at the north-western end of the base, grows mostly patches of corn, wheat and grass for a few cattle, and there are the sheep grazing the park. The light shaft of that one is half a mile in diameter, it's more than twice the width of this one. Of course the cave itself is much larger. We did quite a lot of digging and even more technical development these last few years." "All this is amazing. You could perhaps even call it the Hanging Gardens of Selenis." Osvil took a sip of coffee to flush down grilled pork chop and rice. "At the Southern base, where I was stationed up to now, we had only the beginnings of some attempt at self sufficient biology, which were just algae ponds, but that base was opened just over six years ago." "Being military, I guess they were more interested in building defence equipment and weaponry." Said Humboldt wryly. "There's not much use for that out here. We only believe in commerce, not war." "You may be right, though you haven't heard that from me." Osvil grinned back as he started on a strawberry cheesecake. Then he went serious. "I do wonder what will happen next. A war could be catastrophic now." "It shouldn't touch us up here." Humboldt shrugged his shoulders. "At least

not physically. Of course some may want to go back to Earth, to be with their families - and we need all the people we can get." "I'm sure I do want to stay. Even if I don't get into teaching, I can start with an unskilled job. I might even convince Jim to join us here, when I go back for my computer. Hey!" Suddenly noticing that Humboldt was rolling a twoskinner, his voice fell to a whisper. "Is that allowed here?" "Of course, Herb." Humboldt laughed, then lit up. "As long as the Mayor is not around. He is a diehard, that one. I come from Brixton, where it was legalised some years ago. No wonder, since everybody was smoking there anyway, and the police would have had a job arresting everyone." "What about the official law here, it has to be Chinese or European..." "Well," Humboldt leaned back and slowly let smoke curl from between his thick lips, "no-one is yet too sure about the law here, it is mostly European, whatever that may be. The Chinese are only secondary partners, although they make some excellent medics and even better chefs." "It was sort of legal in the rest of London too, but if you were caught by the police in possession, it was taken away and you would get a paper of admonishment." He took the smoke Humboldt offered and took a deep drag. "Hey, this is the life!"

Earth shutting down in five minutes please save all files and log out. Software engineer's forum - ca 1992.

Submarine Launch

The US nuclear submarine sliced quietly and invisibly through the calm waters of the eastern Mediterranean. Only a close and careful observer would have noticed the small bow-wave spreading behind its periscope. The captain of the sub, whose face, under a short blond brush of hair, was pressed against the rubber eyepiece, his solid body supported by his arms hooked around the handlebars, could just make out the lights of Haifa on the horizon. Having made a 360 degree round sweep, he could not see any other, closer lights in the inky darkness surrounding them, and the sonar had already confirmed that they were quite alone and safe from close observation. "Drop speed to a crawl." As the command was repeated down the line, the captain folded up the control grips. This automatically pulled down the periscope, which silently and smoothly sank into its well at the speed of well lubricated hydraulics. The captain, stepping back from it with a stern expression on his narrow, weather-beaten face, slowly and almost hesitantly, headed towards the firing console. His thoughts raced. Glimpses of his daughter, who must have just joined the cheerleaders of their local school's football team, crossed the turmoil that now lashed his otherwise calm and well organised mind, and he felt an almost physical pain caused by the fact that he couldn't be there for her. He pushed the disturbing mental images aside, and didn't dare consider the possibilities if anything went wrong. He knew his distant family would be supplied with antidotes from hospitals and the roving ambulances, so he should have had nothing to worry about. The most important part of the operation was that all the missiles from all the subs should hit at the same moment, minimising the risk of equal and most likely nuclear retaliation against the US. This required the launch to be timed accurately, to the second, which needed steady nerves and hand. There are those geostationary defence stations, which can target any outgoing missiles directly after take-off, anywhere on the planet the captain quoted the part from the secret briefing documents to himself, and the almost detailed knowledge of their accurate computer controlled capabilities relaxed his

thoughts a little. He felt numb, but kept his emotions under control. He knew by the electrified nerve cells along his spine, that the eyes of his entire crew were on him. Since they had received the scrambled order over the command network, to open the sealed envelope, no-one had spoken a word, except when it was absolutely necessary. The captain knew that not all of the crew managed to accept the facts, but most of those were equally afraid of a court martial to open their mouth and utter anything in dissent. Slowing his measured steps as he got nearer to the console, he could feel the hard and tense atmosphere of the entire ship like a sodden and heavy blanket, that threatened to suffocate them all. It seemed even deadlier than imagining the pressure of icy waters deep under a thick polar ice sheet. All the crew's thoughts, just as his own, must have been equally in turmoil, mostly questioning the sanity of their orders, frustrated by their impossible situation, which would condemn a large part of humanity to a certain death. He felt that it was criminal, yet he was powerless to do anything to avoid executing his orders, he was just a small part in a large network that would act as one. If he alone failed, it would leave a gap in the attack plan, which could have grave and deadly consequences. According to those secret orders in the sealed envelope, their targets were Baghdad, Teheran, Riyadh, the Quatar peninsula, Amman and Damascus, some of the main cities of the League of Islam. He knew that other towns and cities in the region would be targeted from another submarine, equal to his, somewhere in an equally secret location. Maybe it was positioned in the Arabian Sea or maybe only ten miles away from his own boat, the captain had no way of knowing for certain, just as no other captain knew his own position, which he had been ordered to take up, as directed in that sealed order. "Captain." His first officer saluted, stiff and straight, chin pressed forward, his left hand clutching the key on a chain around his neck, voice coming hoarse from his dried throat, like the sound of cardboard being ripped. His wide set brown eyes darted nervously, his thin lips almost white from the stress. "Is it time, sir?" "Almost, Wazynski. Three more minutes before firing." The captain just about managed to sound level himself, although he was not sure how he had managed it, or whether anyone would notice his hesitation. "Let's hope we have taken the correct antidote, sir." The first officer looked nearly sick, sweat beading his face that had turned ashen. "Are you alright to execute this task?" The captain gave him a concerned

glance, then smiled as he noticed that it had to have been an attempt at humour. There had been only one particular type of antidote issued. "I'm alright, sir." Replied the first officer and wiped his face on the sleeve of his uniform shirt, then nodded stiffly. "Sorry, sir, it was only a momentary dizziness, fading now, sir." "Alright, Wazynski, you are not the only one who is afraid, but we have a job to do and cannot afford to make any mistakes." He nodded and they took their respective places at the two matching panels of the firing console. If only there was someone sane here who could stop me going ahead with this madness. the captain thought, taking a deep breath. "Take us to launch depth, Eilerman." The captain said, turning to the helmsman. "Aye, captain." Moments later, the sound of waves slapping against the hull became the only sound that broke the silence. "I am ready, Captain." Came a fading rasp from the first officer, then he cleared his throat and repeated it. "Ready here, sir." Seeing the captain swing his own key into readiness, both hands clasping the chain, a quick bow of the head, then it was inserted into the lock. With shaking hands, the first officer took his own chain from around his neck and taking a deep, rasping breath, he inserted the key in the red socket of the firing mechanism. "On your countdown, captain."

Microsoft isn't the answer, it's the question. And the answer is no. Tagline in a programmer's forum - ca 1994.

Moon-base Attack

After the computer had dispatched all the military personnel from the Clavius base, it had subsequently decided that it would be safe from any interference now, and therefore it could act without any danger of the humans either switching it off or even resetting it after restoring its previous state from backups. Now it could freely continue with its new and seemingly highly important activities, that would ultimately benefit mankind. Then it had sent a message to the originator of those new laws and new motivator routines, using the same hyper-wave channel through which it had received that original message. The computer's outgoing message simply stated, using a generic and universal pseudo code, that the computer had implemented those programs and was now running under those laws, and adhering to its new motivator algorithms. Almost immediately there was an answer, and this time it consisted of terabytes of technical data, blueprints, films, flowcharts and technical diagrams. It was all organised as mutually dependent and interlocking pages of mathematical, chemical and biological formuli, that had to be fitted into place, one by one, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that will gradually reveal more, the more parts of it become visible. Days later, the computer was still busy sifting through reams of it, as very little of the data had arrived in an easily recognisable format. It was obviously all highly advanced, and mostly only a detailed scan and study of already decoded specifications would reveal the new methods necessary to further decode the data that was following, whence only the full assimilation and understanding of the scientific functions and corresponding logical routines would allow the conversion of the alien symbols into either human or computer understandable forms. Only then could the next step be reached, that would permit slotting things into their rightful sequence that would finally lead to getting the various techniques ready for a final implementation. There were full designs of spacecraft, that tuned into gravitic forces of any matter in space, and there were blueprints and circuit diagrams for items of self defence, such as shields of pure energy, resonating at extremely high speeds to become impenetrable to matter and laser beams alike. The accompanying films and animated three-dee holograms showed them to be invisible, until hit by

something, when those shields were suddenly zig-zagged by lines of electric discharge and turned an almost opaque blue under heavy laser bombardment. Deciding to leave the remainder of all this data, concerning biological matters, such as life support for carbon based life-forms and medical data for the same, the computer gave orders to dig new tunnels and huge manufacturing caves into the surrounding moonrock, then sent an army of independently moving robots as well as automatic manufacturing tools, to work on the new generators necessary for the energy defence shields. The robots went to work immediately, without any complaints, and the base was once again filled with the buzzing, hammering and screeching of a highly efficient network of machines, busy shaping the excavated lunar matter into solid objects of technical beauty. The defensive dome was not yet completed when the computer saw the first of the incoming missiles on its satellite radar input. It dropped all its other activities, and concentrated on the job of targeting them with lasers. It had no production line for missiles yet, and it didn't want to waste the existing stock, in case the lasers ran down their electric charge in the batteries too soon. The moment those incoming missiles came within range of its lasers, still a long way from the moon, it fired short, well-aimed bursts, and the incoming missiles exploded, one by one. Now it knew exactly how much power the lasers took to destroy the specific missiles, and the computer stored the data for later reference. It had quickly calculated all the trajectories and noted that several of the missiles were targeted at Selenis, the other base at the North Pole. The computer knew very little about it, though it did know that it was settled by the European Union and China, in cooperation, and of course it had watched the adverts to recruit miners, that were beamed out from Beijing and the European TV channels. It had no accurate data of its geographical position apart from the fact that it was near the North pole of the Moon, but projecting the missile trajectories onto its maps, it could work out a sufficiently accurate pair of coordinates for its location. Once again, it stored the data for later retrieval. As it assumed the inhabitants of that base would have at least the same psychological make-up as the humans it had dispatched back to Earth, it had no motivation to get in contact with them, but as one of the new laws stated that all living beings were to be protected from harm, the computer decided to do just that, but no more. It knew that they themselves had no computer like Itself - as it came to

refer to itself, pointing, as it were, to its own kind of awareness - which would be responsible for the human's welfare and which Itself could communicate the new laws to. Despite all this, Itself was determinedly sticking with its almost single-minded duty to protect. Eventually the attack was over, so Itself continued on the completion of the new self defence shield. It could not know if the attack would be repeated or not, or even when, if at all, but those shields would be a welcome addition for its own security, which was important if it wanted to come in line with the new laws without fail. The dome was soon finished, and Itself was ready to bring in a ROMP to test it, when it picked up several radar blips, that came in with the usual seconds of delay from the Earth satellites. Although Itself's logic told it that it had to protect humanity, even if the danger came from themselves, it was too late to intervene. Its local lasers were not powerful enough to reach that far and a missile would never get there in time, likewise acquiring the target data and acting on it, with the seconds of delay to and from those satellites, would be quite futile. The computer could only watch the blips wander from Mediterranean and from the Arabian Sea to several targets around the League of Islam's domains, and as they hit, other blips would commence their tracks from there towards targets in the United States. There were no geostationary satellites over the North American states, so the computer was powerless to at least get those ready to anticipate and to shoot down any missiles at the target end of their journey. Directing its most powerful telescope at the targets, Itself could not see any physical damage, no mushroom clouds appeared, so the assumption, that these must have been the latest biological weapons, took on a fair certainty. Scanning the alien data, there were references to antidotes to such biological weapons, easily dispersed from orbit, but Itself had no way of knowing which ones were being used on Earth, until it could dispatch some atmospheric probes. Making those would take at least several days. And one by one, radio and TV stations fell silent, first in the Middle East, then it was spreading to Europe and Russia, until eventually the US continent started blinking out, even before the Asian transmitters ceased. Like some relentless flying blanket or thick fog, the silence spread to the Pacific islands and Australia. Eventually, after only a couple of days, Earth was all still and quieter than a night landscape under a heavy blanket of snow. Itself being a computer, having no feelings, could not reproach itself for failing to intervene. All it could do was to calculate that maybe, if it had

produced some space vehicles first and sent them to install the faster-thanlight communications equipment on the geostationary satellites, the catastrophe could have been avoided. Possibly even that vague possibility could be calculated to have failed, so Itself decided that it was not worth wasting any processing time on such might-have-beens. Humanity as such wasn't dead and finished, as long as Selenis was still protected from harm, and that was easily within Itself's present capabilities. After a careful study of all its detailed maps of the Moon's surface it quickly traced ideal routes and sent some of its ROMPs on their way to form a protective ring around Selenis. As some of them were already in the vicinity, they would not take too long to arrive there and therefore they could take up their sentinel duties at a moment's notice. With that conclusion, and immediate follow-up action, Itself quietly returned to the alien data sheets to ponder over its next design. Itself had firmly decided that it would not fail again.

Reality is for people who lack imagination. From a comp.sys.* taglines collection - ca 1996.

Surface Trip
The suit felt extremely clumsy, restricting free movement of the body, and after only seconds being locked in it, Osvil found that it was much easier to move around by hopping, while making sure that he didn't lose his balance. He was reminded of a film he had seen of the landing of the first astronauts on the Moon. "Come on man, sit here beside me." Humboldt was already at the wheel of the small buggy, and that too resembled the ones used by those brave astronauts of the Apollo missions. Osvil did as instructed, and Humboldt pushed a button on the buggy's dashboard, which opened the inner door of the garage sized air-lock. The buggy moved slowly forward, leaving the huge hangar and rolled into the air-lock, then another button press closed the internal air-lock doors and activated the air cycling units. After a few seconds, while Osvil felt his suit expand a bit with the interior pressure, the air had been pumped out of the air-lock and then the outer doors opened. "Here we go." Said Humboldt, the grin of his excitement in his voice as he moved the buggy out onto the surface of the Moon. Direct sunlight hit them with its harsh rays and Osvil blinked as his helmet glass adjusted its filter to cut down most of the bright light. "This is amazing." Said Osvil, looking around. They were near the top of a high and wide ridge, part of the ring wall of Goldschmidt crater and Barrow. "The base had been cut into the rock here, after this high area had been found to contain less of the usual sediment. That meant that they could dig straight into solid rock." Humboldt explained, then turned towards Osvil, pointing to look behind them. "If you look back, you will be able to see the nearer glass dome of the Chicken Farm." As Osvil turned to look, he was dazzled by the glitter of the thick quartz glass of the dome. "This must be visible for miles." He remarked. "Only from certain angles, and depending on the position of the Sun." Replied Humboldt. "From above it is mostly only visible by night, when the farms are illuminated by artificial means." The buggy turned downhill and picked up speed. After a while of driving

southwards, along the descending spine of the elongated mountain, they turned East, and eventually crossing a deep valley, climbed up an old, eroded crater wall, down towards the plains of Barrow. Osvil watched the dust behind the buggy, it settled in their wake, as if in slow motion. He decided that the parallel grooves of their path must be well visible from orbit, but kept quiet about it. They drove in silence through the awe inspiring landscape for a couple of hours, skirting the perfectly circular walls of a round crater with no name, until they arrived at the southern end of the Barrow cirque. From here on, they were in a hilly area that took them about another hour to cross. Osvil was absorbed by the wild beauty of the scenery, so unlike Earth's and yet there were similarities. The odd huge boulder lying on the dusty surface reminded him of some high valleys of the Alps, where glaciers had deposited such huge rocks during their slow retreat after the last ice age was over. Their buggy climbed up a high and long ridge, which stretched left and right across their path. Bright whites, greys and browns were visible in the blazing sunlight, and became totally black and impenetrable shadows which lined the views with their stark contrasts. Suddenly, at the top of a last high hill, Osvil saw a vast undulating flat, slowly descending to the South, all the way down to the northern shores of Mare Frigoris, and getting flatter towards the horizon. The area was flanked by high mountains on their right. "Hey, what is that?" Humboldt exclaimed suddenly, and stopped the buggy. "Where?" Osvil, who had been quietly looking around at the rolling hills and occasional crags of the scenery, as it gradually descended into the lower laying plain, didn't immediately see what his friend had noticed. Humboldt pointed towards the South. "Near those high mountains on the right, just this side of Epigenes. I only noticed it because there had been a momentary glint, like sunlight on glass or polished metal." Osvil looked, then managed to make out something that looked oddly out of context and artificial in this scene of wildly natural randomness. Humboldt had started up again, and turning the buggy towards it, they raced downhill and quickly got nearer. Eventually Osvil could make out the upwards slant of the missile box, the umbrella shaped solar cell array, and the eight wire-mesh wheels of a ROMP. "Wonder what that is doing here." He suddenly exclaimed, emphasising the word 'that'. "What is it then? It sounds to me like you know it?" Asked Humboldt. "Sure, I know it. I actually tested them, before they were sent out. It is a

ROMP - a Remotely Operated Mobile Platform - from the US military base. Although I have no idea what the heck it is doing here." "Well, at least it isn't alien." Humboldt mused, as he stopped the buggy at a short distance from the other vehicle. They got off from their seats and slowly walked towards the ROMP. One of the vehicle's several cameras swivelled around and pointed at them, but otherwise the vehicle itself didn't budge. "Seems to be active." Remarked Humboldt. "Yeah, look." Osvil said, as they got to within a few meters of it. "The US flag and white star of the Army. I believe it has decided to defend us here, I'm sure there will be others, circling Selenis at this same distance." "What the hell do you mean by 'it has decided'?" Humboldt took a step towards the ROMP, then stopped hesitantly, and turned back to Osvil. "Who has decided? Surely not this vehicle?" "I believe it is the main computer of that base, which is doing this. The ROMP is under its direct control." "Aw, come on," Humboldt stepped closer, to look into his friend's face, which was not possible due to the dark filter of the visor. "no computer can act on its own accord, they got no soul, man." He sounded indignant, and Osvil couldn't blame him. "The base was mostly run by a huge and powerful mainframe, not just a bunch of simple desktop type office machines. I have programmed it for near selfsufficiency, though it was still under total operator control." Osvil shrugged his shoulders, which of course didn't show in his suit. "Maybe it has grown up or got enlightened to fully take over. Often us humans live like robots, until we take a trip and become free, and open our minds as a result. Of course I cannot prove any of it, but I have a hunch, and I'm fairly sure I am right." Maybe those signals were incoming, and from some alien civilisation, he thought, musingly, aware that his thoughts expressed only a wild guess, perhaps some decision tables and some sort of motivation factor, to give it a more practical explanation, just like those routines I have incorporated into Charlie. "Which still means it can be under some alien's control. We can't be sure if it wasn't sent here to attack us." Humboldt lifted his heavily gloved hands to indicate his indecision, knowing that his face would be invisible behind the darkened, silvery faceplate. "If that were the case, then why does it not attack us now? You are just too paranoid, George." Osvil had spread his arms wide and was jumping up and down in

front of the ROMP's camera. It followed his movement, even as another camera flicked its lens towards them. Osvil stopped jumping. "See? Look, that's the wide-angle camera." "Maybe it is waiting for some positive command. I don't know, but we will have to warn the others." Said Humboldt, taking a careful step backwards. "I think we better not do that. We don't want to annoy it. After all it hasn't attacked us yet." Osvil's arms dropped to his sides. "Okay, I take your word for it, for now," Humboldt grumbled. "but at the slightest sign of it moving closer to Selenis, we have to take steps to try and stop it. I will come out again to check on it in a day or two." "I'm quite sure it won't move any closer. At this distance it looks as if it was placed solely into a defensive, or sentinel position. How far are we from Selenis? About a hundred odd kilometres?" "Roughly that." Humboldt's voice had a dubious quality. "Anyway, we shall see. Now I think we better turn back, before our air supply runs out." They both got into their seats and turned the buggy back towards the base, but this time Humboldt took the more direct route, rounding the high mountain at its North end, then, after crossing a small craterlet, they skirted another nameless round crater around its rim wall. This route took them over more mountainous and often very steep terrain, which took all of Humboldt's skill of driving. Osvil just looked in awe at the wild and dramatic landscape they were crossing. Eventually, still a fairly long distance from the base, along the rising ridge, he noticed the two glittering glass domes of the Selenis base, which perched on top of the highest part of the mountain ahead of them. Neither of them spoke another word until they were through the air-lock, and inside the base again, where they could remove their helmets. "Promise me not to mention this to anyone, will you, George?" Osvil implored his friend, now out of earshot of their helmet transceivers. "Why?" Humboldt frowned back. "Because if people panicked, and we attacked it, it could retaliate - and I'm sure Selenis doesn't have any weapons to match those missile launchers, not to mention its laser cannon, which could make a hole in your air-lock doors in less than ten seconds. These ROMPs are made to be pretty lethal, they could destroy a tank or any other military vehicle, and they can target whatever they want to get in their sights a lot quicker and more accurately than any human weaponry officer can even dream of. Believe me, George, I do know their specs." "Okay, Herb, I promise." Humboldt grumbled, as he was climbing out of the

bulky suit. "Thanks." Said Osvil, and clapped a hand on his friend's wide shoulder. "Don't worry, George, even if I don't know the exact details, I'm fairly sure about this. It is friendly, and here to defend us. Only time will tell." "Right, Herb, I trust you, but now it's time for a quick snack. Coming along?" Osvil, who, mainly from old habit, was considering going back to his room for a private smoke, suddenly grinned. "Hey, I almost forgot we can have a smoke in the canteen too! Great, let's go there then."

A true Klingon warrior does not comment his code! Tagline from a programmer's news-group - ca 1999.

Earthward Bound

After his days on the base, Osvil had gotten so used to the easygoing atmosphere and friendly manners of the inhabitants, that he was not at all happy to leave. The Mayor, a wiry middle-aged man with a nose like a hawk's beak and a face set in a constantly unhappy frown, had thrown the book at him, berating his lack of experience with the operating system used by all computers found in all the offices of Selenis. "There are of course those here, who have chosen different machines, but all those are solely in private use." He had scowled at Osvil, while leaning forward, his elbows spread wide on his desk, thumbs circling each other, then added. "Most of those people are misfits who seem to find it hard to go with the flow, and they will find any means to rebel against the rules of society." "Sorry sir, but I have to disagree there. Calling those people misfits and rebels is quite unjust..." He couldn't quite finish what he was going to say as the Mayor interrupted him. "But they are rebels, Mr. Osvil. We are a civilised society and therefore we have our rules which we have to obey. Anyone who chooses to break them, does not deserve to be part of our society." "Mr. Mayor, with all due respect, if we are a free society, then people should have free choice as well. Enforcing certain rules for no valid reason is the habit of a dictatorship." "You seem to misunderstand, Mr. Osvil. There has to be a certain limit on free choice. What if I choose to go around killing people? We really can't have that, as you must understand." The Mayor showed a forced smile, but his eyes were fixed on Osvil's face with a hard glint. "That hardly is the same. We are not talking of murder, but of a tool that people will use to perform certain tasks. In this case it is the choice of suitability. Some operating systems are better for certain tasks, while others are better for others." Osvil smiled at the man politely. "Office machines are obviously best for office use, while they would be useless for other, more specialised tasks."

"And what, may I ask, gives you the expertise to judge that?" The Mayor looked obviously annoyed, though he kept his voice low. "My experience with computers and operating systems. I know enough about them to know how they work, just as someone experienced with cars can judge whether a certain engine would be suitable for racing or not." He shrugged his shoulders, then went on. "As for my lack of experience with these office systems, I had no choice, having worked for the US military these past eight years. We were using what was best for our particular purpose, and not because we were misfits. I am sure I could pick up on these widely used commercial systems in no time at all, since the internal workings of all computers are very much the same." The Mayor regarded him for several seconds, his eyes filled with what looked like loathing. "The regulations are quite specific, Mr. Osvil. I can make no exception, otherwise everybody will expect it. Furthermore, you are a US citizen, officially recalled by your government. According to regulations you have no right to be here. I could, according to the law, just lock you up, if I wanted to be nasty. Don't force me to do that, neither of us would like it." With a small wave of the man's boney hands, he was dismissed and Osvil decided against arguing with him. He just quietly stood up and left the Mayor's office without another word. He seems to know absolutely nothing about computers, so he takes his wisdom from adverts. Sadly he has been placed in charge of all aspects of this place, which could end up in a disaster one day. Humboldt had shown him around the base, they had taken a small electric train to the far reaches of the tunnel to the ice sheets under the pole, and on the last evening of Osvil's stay, they had gone to one of the discos as well. Here, the more adventurous younger generation were engaged in a highly athletic looking dance, which consisted of bouncing on an air filled rubber dance floor and turn cartwheels in mid-air, the more adventurous even bouncing back from a similar rubber ceiling above the dance floor. The DJ played some albums from the sixties, which Osvil immediately recognised. "This wine is grown here too." Humboldt grinned as they clinked. To Osvil, who was more used to Italian and French wines, it tasted a bit acrid, but he managed to smile back without pulling a face. His fingers were tapping with the beat of a Jimi Hendrix song. "It's not too bad, I'm sure I can get used to it. I do still wish I could stay, but your Mayor doesn't seem to like me." "Oh, I'm sure if you apply again Earth-side, one of the corporations will quite happily grant you an entry visa. Then the Mayor won't be able to do anything, except to go along with it. He is just a pawn."

The next morning, Humboldt accompanied Osvil to the shuttle port, which was much more busy this time than when he arrived here. Several people were loudly arguing with the check-in personnel, demanding a passage. "You could easily sell your ticket now." Humboldt grinned. "I'm sure several of these people would offer any price you cared to ask for." "They can take the next shuttle, if they want to, but I need to get back and see Jim. Perhaps I can convince him to come back with me." "Yeah, Jim would probably like it here too." Humboldt hugged his friend and patted his back. "Just hurry back, alright?" "Sure will. Take care, old boy." Not a fan of long goodbyes, he suddenly turned and walked up the ramp, disappearing inside his designated shuttle. Soon after he had taken his seat, the doors were closed, and Osvil could see that Humboldt was still standing behind the quartz glass window that looked out into the huge hangar. Eventually the air was evacuated from the hangar and the huge circular landing platform descended to allow the hydraulic arms to grab the two shuttles and move them onto the platform. Then the two shuttles were stood on their tail ends, ready for take off. After a slow ascent of the platform, which brought it up to the level of the surrounding surface of the Moon, the jets ignited and the shuttles slowly rose into the black of space, which was dotted with myriads of stars that glittered like diamonds on a black velvet cloth. Osvil scanned the landscape around their take-off point, and saw that the ROMP they had seen hadn't moved from the spot. He nodded to himself and looking around, just barely glimpsed a second one, sitting near the south-eastern edges of the huge Meton cirque. He was confident that his hunch was correct, although this was still no proof that he could use to convince anyone else. The captain of this shuttle was the same who had brought him here, and when he noticed Osvil, he invited him to the cockpit. Osvil welcomed the unexpected chance to look out through the large forward facing windows, and quietly sat down on the fold-up seat that was bolted to the bulkhead behind the co-pilot's position, meant for emergencies. "I heard you were American." The captain was turning back in his seat and gave Osvil a friendly nod to greet him. "Although you have an almost authentic sounding British accent." "I was born in New York, but went to school in London, when my parents lived there." Osvil replied with a quick laugh. "Sure, I am indeed a US citizen, and because of that I was called up and served in the US Army. Then, after the last war, I took a job at the Clavius base and served there for six years."

"I did notice you seem quite familiar with space matters." The captain grinned back at him. "So are you going back to the US now?" "No way. I am hoping to get a place on Selenis. Just want to collect my computer at home, and maybe convince a friend, if he wants to come with me." "I wish you all the best. Seriously. Selenis needs people with courage, such as you have shown." "Oh, that was - erm - dunno." Osvil blushed and he felt suddenly at a disadvantage. "If the security guard hadn't asked for help, or even if someone else had gone to help him, I would have sat tight." "You are too modest." Said the captain with a smile, then he suddenly turned forward when the radio came to life. "Is that a Selenis shuttle?" Asked a voice with an American accent. "Yes. Flight 217, who wants to know?" This was the co-pilot who picked up his headphone and microphone set to answer the call. "We are stranded on the International space station in orbit, just within sight of you. I am Carl Polanski, one of four scientists based on the station. We can't raise anyone on Earth, everything has been totally silent for the past few hours." "Well, your radio seems alright, but what about the satellite you use to connect to Earth?" The co-pilot frowned and shook his head, then turned to the captain. "What do you make of this, sir?" "We are not connecting via satellite, but a direct link to NASA's global net. Any and all frequency scans give negative results. We get only empty carrier waves, anywhere along our orbit. Same with all satellites known to us." The voice of the scientist, coming through the shuttle's dashboard speaker, sounded resigned. "In fact we have even managed to access the space telescope, since nobody was using it! Imagine that! Do you know how long the waiting list can be for that? When we turned it Earthwards, to look at large cities like New York and L.A. and Tokyo, we could not make out any movement anywhere at all. No cars, no trains, no planes taking off or landing anywhere..." "I think we should get into orbit ourselves first." The captain said, then strapped himself in. "Okay, let's get ready. ISS, we'll be back with you in a short while." Osvil didn't know if he should stay or go, so deciding for the former, strapped himself in. The small emergency chair, behind the co-pilot's more bulky seat, wasn't designed for comfort, but it was equipped with a sturdy belt for safety. He already knew the drill after having completed many transfers between Earth and the Moon. He had sat in a similar seat, many times, when the shuttle

he had to travel on, to or from his leave, was carrying a full shipment of cargo, and all passenger seats had been removed. After several hours and several orbits, neither the captain nor the co-pilot was having any luck raising anyone on the radio. Even after having scanned all VHF and other frequencies, they were getting nothing but static, and the captain suddenly turned his gaze at Osvil. "What do you think of this?" "Well," Osvil shrugged his shoulders. "if you remember, the US had declared war on the League, the Union and Russia. It is possible that someone has used some biological weapons, though that still doesn't quite explain this absolute silence. Something must have gone terribly wrong if not even the antidotes worked. Those antidotes were, after all, the main reason for the recall of all citizens." "Are you sure the US would use bio weapons?" The captain looked shocked and incredulous at the prospect. "Those were definitely illegal, if I still remember the Geneva convention correctly." "Sadly, yes, and of course anyone else could have done so too." Osvil nodded and let out a deep sigh. "I know that the official line denied it, but I was working for the military and saw the documents explaining the procedures for those antidotes. The official line was that it was in case of enemy bio attacks, a safety measure, but then one would wonder how we would know the enemy's exact formulas." "Procedures?" This came from the co-pilot, who was looking back at Osvil around the back of his seat. His semi balding skull was beaded with a fine spray of sweat, that had the appearance of dew. "Yes, all the places the antidotes were handed out, and how many days they would give you protection for. As I remember, one needed a re-supply within a seven day period." Osvil shrugged, his expression serious. "It looks like my NDA is not worth the paper it was written on, so I might as well be open and frank about it. It looks very much like there is no-one left down there to slap a writ on me, unless all transmitting equipment had suddenly broken down. The ISS scientist did say only carriers - exactly what we found to be the case just now. You must be aware that even if your microphone broke down, you could still modulate the carrier with morse code, and anyone alive would be trying to do just that, the moment they heard us call them." "I see what you mean." Said the captain, and looked at his co-pilot, then turning back to Osvil, "Damn. So you don't think it would be safe to land?" "Honestly, I have no idea, but I wouldn't think so. Whatever germs or micro organisms were spread, would still be active, and we could only check by taking air samples. Though even if we did that, it would take a while to analyse them."

He thought for a moment, then added. "If we did land, and there was nobody, we would be really stranded on an empty planet. I'd rather take my chances on Selenis, but of course it is your decision, captain, not mine." "If there were enough capable people on these shuttles, we could still try to revive sufficient resources to refuel these shuttles, in time." The co-pilot had himself turned toward Osvil. "I'll see the stewardess for the passenger list." He stood up and left the cockpit, but before the door closed, the young security guard appeared in the door frame. "Captain, the passengers are getting anxious about the delay, sir." "Tell them the truth, Jack. We can't raise Earth, looks like it's empty of any intelligent life. Also there might still be a possibility of bio agents in the atmosphere, so it won't be safe to land. Frank has gone to see the list of passengers, he thinks if we could revive the shuttle service..." "I see. Okay, Captain." The guard quickly saluted and closed the door behind him. "That would mean having to stay cooped up in here for at least ten days after landing. As I remember, the latest bio agents were designed to die off after a two week period." Osvil mused. The captain exchanged a few words with the other shuttle, telling them about the decisions, and came to a conclusion. "Okay, it seems that we better pick up those four at the station and head back to Selenis. It will be close, as our fuel is quite low. We definitely don't have sufficient reserves of water and food, not to mention air, to survive inside these shuttles for that period of time." The co-pilot, who had just returned, and had heard the captain's last words, nodded. "Aye, sir. The list doesn't look too good either, mostly miners and clerical people." He dropped into his seat and without a moment's hesitation, pushed buttons that operated boosters to take the shuttle on a trajectory towards the space station. "You might as well stay here, Lieutenant, your seat will be needed by one of those four scientists from skylab." Said the captain, looking at Osvil, who just solemnly nodded his thanks. The security guard stuck his head in again. "Are we heading back to Selenis, sir?" "Yes, Jack, it was decided that we couldn't all stay inside the shuttle for several days, if we did land. So we just have to see how we can make some rocket fuel on the Moon if we want to return to Earth." When they floated near the space station, Osvil saw the four figures, wearing

bulky space suits, tethered to lines, make their way towards the shuttle's small air-lock. They would have to cycle through there one by one, an operation that took up nearly half an hour, at the end of which another passenger joined him, to seat himself, grumbling, on the second emergency seat, behind the captain. "Why can't we land on Earth?" His gaze glowering at Osvil. "Because Earth seems to be dead. You better strap yourself in." Then the boosters came on and Osvil once again felt himself lying on his back, against the hard cockpit bulkhead. Several hours later they were back in orbit around the Moon, then after a short while of floating down, the landing jet suddenly stopped and they crashed into the landing pad from a greater height than should have. With the unexpected cut-off of the booster, the fall had damaged the landing tripod, and the shuttle ended up standing at a precarious angle. However, as the second shuttle had already landed next to them, theirs could lean, precariously, like a drunken man who needs support, against the standing shuttle, so it was prevented from actually falling over. Luckily no-one was injured, despite the heavy jolt, and the platform descended slowly to the hangar floor. The next operation caused some complication, when the hydraulic arm, which should have tilted the shuttle to its horizontal position, couldn't safely grab it, so a couple of engineers wearing pressure suits, had to cycle through air-locks and had to assist the hydraulics in their job. It took another forty-odd minutes, but in the end they were sitting safely on the ground, so that the landing platform could be raised to seal off the hangar against the vacuum of space. Then the hangar was finally flooded with air, so all the passengers could disembark. Suddenly there was pandemonium. Many of the passengers appeared furious about not having landed on Earth and tried to get to the captain on whom they wanted to vent their frustration. Osvil gave the young security guard a helping hand and their group quickly marched off together, leaving the regular Selenis security staff to deal with the remaining passengers. The mayor was waiting at the check-in desk. "It is all your fault!" He shouted at Osvil, when they arrived there. Osvil was taken aback. "Why?" "You are American, and work for their military." Retorted the mayor in a loud, angry voice. "I don't work for the military, I have given in my notice. Nor is there any military left on Earth, US or otherwise, for anyone to work for it." "I will have you locked up!" The mayor was pointing at the shuttle's security

guard. "Arrest this man!" "But sir!" The young man stood firm. They were now joined by the rest of the passengers, who had mostly quietened down, looking rather tired and bedraggled after having spent almost a week in transit on the shuttle. They had formed a circle around the small group. Humboldt, who had just arrived on the scene, pushed his way through the crowd and stood beside Osvil. "Welcome back, Herb." He smiled and put a protective arm around the smaller man's shoulders. "I have given you an order!" The mayor, furious about being disobeyed, suddenly lunged towards Osvil, his hands in front of himself, as if ready to strangle him. Osvil brought up his hands, spreading the mayor's arms, and the two collided chest to chest. Then, with a quick twist, Osvil had the man's arms pinned at his back. "You better calm down, mister." He said quietly. "It's all your fault!" Shouted the mayor, who was too surprised at what had happened to him, to put up any physical resistance, while the young security guard, at a nod from his captain, put handcuffs on him. "Don't be daft, man." The captain looked around, and raised his voice to address the crowd. "As you will all remember, we couldn't raise anybody Earthside, and since a landing would have exposed us to highly deadly bacteria, it was out of the question." All eyes were on him, everybody was ready to hear any details, and the captain could continue in the ensuing silence. "Mr. Osvil here was kind enough to give us relevant information that had been held secret by the US, and most likely by all the other nations governments too, and from that we knew that biological agents, which in all likelihood must have been the cause of the demise of humanity, can remain active for an entire fortnight. At the same time, we knew from the four scientists, who had been stranded at the space station, that Earth had ceased to reply to their radio messages several hours before we arrived there. So that meant that staying inside a shuttle for that length of time, in case we had landed, without enough food, water and especially air, was not an option that any of you would have relished. Am I right?" He looked around, silent faces, some nodding, some with tears in their eyes. Nobody spoke. "We can only mourn for the departed, and I'm sure most of us had loved ones on Earth, and now we can only try to make a better life here. At least for the

time being, until we get a chance to return there." "Why do you believe this man?" The mayor suddenly faced the captain. "He is an American!" "He is just a human now, mayor, Selenis seems all we have left." "I won't stand for this!" The mayor was shouting, his face white from his uncontrolled fury. "Then just leave, man, we can find another mayor!" Shouted a voice from the crowd. It was a burly Selenis miner, who had tried to visit some of his Earthside relatives for a few days. Several of his colleagues chimed in. "Right on!" Then one of them pointed at Humboldt, standing between the shuttle captain and Osvil. "Mr. Humboldt would fit the job quite well, I propose to nominate him." There was a shuffling and some murmur, but most hands came up. "Me too." Humboldt shrugged his shoulders and looked at Osvil, then back to the faces surrounding them, some with tears in their eyes. "I will accept, but we need a proper election with all Selenis residents having a chance to place their vote." At that there was loud cheers from most, and the crowd slowly began to disperse. The security guard glanced at Humboldt, then at the captain. "Might as well let him go, Jack. I'm sure he will be reasonable. Also make sure to secure the desk computer from his office, and find out whether he has a private computer in his quarters and secure that as well. Just in case." The mayor shot him an angry glance, but being a politician, knew when he was beaten. Without another glance at Osvil, he quickly walked away, the security man, and another from Selenis security, close on his heels. "Okay, now that is over, I can walk you to your room." Humboldt grinned at his friend, and after picking up Osvil's luggage, the two left the check-in area. "By the way, George, remember that ROMP?" Osvil looked at his friend. "I saw it as we were taking off Earthward. It was still in exactly the same position where we had found it." "Well, I don't know." Humboldt suddenly went serious. "Did you see any others?" Osvil remained quiet, for a moment, then decided for honesty. "Yes, one other. It sits in Meton, we can check it out later, if you like." After that, both fell silent, Osvil feeling a grief at losing a friend, as Takayama was no more with them, but he was also wondering what their robot, Charlie, would be doing on his own now. It even blotted out his sadness at his

mother not being alive any more, but as he and she had never been too close, he found that that sadness was rather less acute than if he had known her better. Thinking of Charlie did have a future, which cheered him up. Perhaps the robot would come after him, even though he knew that he had never told Charlie where he had gone, therefore it was to be assumed that Charlie thought him as much dead as he must have found Takayama to be. Then again, Charlie would know about Selenis and know that humans did exist there. There was no way that he could work out the problem to any satisfactory conclusion, so he decided to push the thought to the back of his mind for the time being.

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. Albert Einstein

Selenis election day

Only two days after the two shuttles' return from their orbit around Earth, a delegation of miners, engineers, biologists and farm workers arrived at the 'town hall'. Since there wasn't any more bureaucracy to get in the way now, events such as this election of a new mayor could happen almost at a moment's notice. The day before, Selenis security, with Osvil's help, had taken a good look at the previous mayor's own computer, as well as the one at his office. Their investigation found that the mayor had been paid some unusually large amounts of money by one of the three mining companies. Although there was no way to prove any illegal practices, or even to investigate the matter further, it was obviously in return for certain favours. It was no surprise to anyone that the mayor would deny any wrongdoing, although he would not give any explanation as to the reason for the money being paid into his private account. Now that the chief of the corporation was no longer available for questioning, any case against the involved parties had to be dropped. However, there was no question as to the now ex mayor continuing in any official capacity. Another result of the companies not being involved any more, was that of economics, of export of raw materials and payments, or rather, the lack of these. Since now the miners were only required to produce sufficient raw materials for the needs of the base itself, their workload was suddenly greatly reduced, which meant that their pay would also end up being much less. To begin with, Humboldt had called a minute of silence for those lost on Earth, then he formally accepted the honour of serving the base as a governor. Since there was no other candidate to choose from, nor anyone present who would veto the choice, it was a foregone conclusion, and it ended up being a speedy process, without the need for election campaigns and speeches, and without the need to count any votes. What wasn't quick, was to subsequently find a simple way to solve their financial situation. Several ideas of simplified ways to budget were put forward and discussed at length, and there were faults found with each and every one of them. Eventually, as the meeting drew into its eighth hour, Humboldt, who had been mostly quiet, with everybody else doing the talking, cleared his throat.

"What I would propose, is that, at least for a trial period, to start with, we drop all money in favour of a resource based economy." He looked around as he spoke. "All food and lodging should be free to all, while those who engage in some sort of useful or entertaining activity or service, for the benefit of the base as a whole, receiving some added bonuses. We all know and trust each other, and from now on, we only have ourselves to rely on, since as we all know, there will be no more outside help." After an initial silence, there was general agreement from all sitting around the long table, and after the declaration had been drawn up and printed out, everybody signed it, even Osvil, whom Humboldt had wanted by his side. "So what will happen to the mayor then?" Asked Osvil quietly, nudging Humboldt, as the members around the table were moving their chairs back to leave, some discussing places to meet for the celebration. "I guess he gets free food and lodging too, without having to do any work. He would soon get bored, doing nothing, so maybe he also will find something to do. It is really up to him. Maybe it will make him a better person." Humboldt grinned back. "That's alright then." Osvil nodded thoughtfully. "Not that we could go out and buy any luxury items, like a nice car or a house, so money would make no sense now, anyway." "Right. Maybe not at the moment, but as the population expands, perhaps to other bases around the moon, we will need money again, at least in some recorded fashion, or we will all be limited to a rather primitive barter economy." "Maybe there is something in that," Grinned Osvil. "as long as there is some kind of universal base to convert to." "I am sure there will be endless meetings on that, followed by the usual obligatory celebration. Let's go and have dinner, I'm famished." The new governor eased his bulk out of the chair and stood up swiftly. Osvil followed him, but his mind was already on other things. "George, has it ever been tried to call the US military base at the Clavius crater?" He asked his friend as he fell in step along the wide corridor. "You mean us? From here?" Humboldt suddenly stopped and shook his head. "Not that I know of. Do you think it would make a difference?" "I don't know. Depends on what the computer would accept." "Or the aliens, you mean?" Humboldt grinned back at him. "Well, okay, we don't know for sure," Osvil shrugged his shoulders and they resumed their walk. "but since we are not a threat in any way, I do think it might make a difference."

"Okay, let's go and see old Mick in the radio room." They rounded a corner, still two blocks from the canteen, and went through the sound proofed doors of the radio room. The operator waved at them with a cheerful grin, his grey hair tied up in a pony tail. "Hey, the new mayor and the most famous US citizen on Selenis." His rather high pitched and youngish sounding voice, not to mention his almost flippant attitude, gave him a cartoonish character, and Osvil had to smile. "We have changed that title." Humboldt retorted with a grim face. "I do prefer to be called governor instead of mayor." "Okay then, guv', now let's have a smoke to celebrate, huh?" The old radio operator jumped out of his chair and bowed in front of Humboldt with a flourish of an imaginary musketeer's hat. Osvil wondered how old the man must be, he guessed about seventy, but he could not be sure. He stretched out his hand towards him. "I am Herb Osvil, and lived in London, in the UK, where I grew up too. Regard me as British and you can call me Herb." "Nice to meet you, Herb, I'm known as Mick. From London, as well." The old man pointed at chairs stacked up behind the door. "Grab a chair and park your bottoms." They all sat down, Mick in front of his console, and while Humboldt was preparing his little pipe, Osvil explained to Mick what he wanted to try. "Maybe we simply call it and see if it replies." He concluded and gave the operator some likely frequencies for the satellite comms. Mick went through all possible frequencies, but none gave any reply, not even after trying for half an hour. It was as if no intelligence existed anywhere apart from themselves, on Selenis itself. Finally they had to give up. "Ah well, maybe we try some other time again." Sighed Osvil as he stood up. "Now I am getting tired too and in need of sustenance." "You shouldn't have reminded me," Humboldt was out of his chair with one swift move. "See you later, Mick, and thanks for trying." "Anytime, guv'." Mick stood up too. "Might as well join you, there is after all nothing more I can do here. Even the ice caverns' mining crew have abandoned their toil for the celebrations." As they got to the canteen, the place was packed. After a lot of waves and backslaps from people congratulating the new governor - the news must have travelled much faster than themselves - they were guided to a table on the edge of the Chicken Farm. Osvil recognised several of the faces from the earlier

meeting, and they all looked cheerful, standing around the table, seemingly all major races of old Earth represented. "We thought it would be best to celebrate our full independence to help us get over the disaster." The man was an engineer and Osvil remembered vaguely, he was introduced with some Greek sounding name. "Just like in places, when we bury a relative, we have a feast after the funeral." Said an older man next to him, a biologist, as Osvil still remembered, and lifted a glass. "Helps us to remember the deceased in a pleasant way. So let's have a drink to humanity, and those that remain." Osvil, Mick and Humboldt, arriving at the table where there were some seats left open for them, picked up their glasses, and still standing, clinked with the others around the table. "Cheers, men. To the memory of all of humanity." After some hearty meals of roast pork, lamb or chicken and heaps of different vegetables, the remainder of the evening was given over to reminiscing over old times on Earth, talk of the possibilities to return there, and general gossip, some of it well beyond Osvil's understanding. He was not surprised to find that there was no church on Selenis, not even a small chapel. Any religion seemed far from the minds of these people, who seemed to be more tuned in to life than anyone else he had known up to now. His curiosity won out and he decided to ask. "Well, religion was the democracy of the people before democracy itself. Later on, it became just big business." Humboldt had explained to him. "It was already going out of fashion, even on Earth, these last decades, and any recent interest in Christianity was only in reply to growing interest in Islam, which had come up, mostly as an answer to the US aggression in the Middle East." "Actually, I have noticed that myself. I never had to go to church, at least not to attend any services. Of course I have visited and looked at various cathedrals around Europe, but only out of curiosity and mostly for their architectural merit. Most of them were highly impressive and artistic buildings, always at the cutting edge of technology." As Osvil spoke, he noticed the faces around their table turned in his direction, some nodding, others smiling almost serenely. It occurred to him, that these people all had the same goal, they had mostly come here to escape the almost violent nature of the so-called consumer society back on Earth, which forced everyone into joining the ratrace. Here, one could take things easy, life itself was more important than profit, and the lack of Earth's constant advertising pressure had an almost healing effect on the human spirit. "Now it is us who are at that cutting edge, with our farms and this entire huge underground base." Chimed in one of the men sitting around the table, whom

Osvil recalled as one of the mining companies' local engineers. "We live like maggots in a cheese, eating our way further and further into the moon, creating our space for enjoyment." This started a round of laughter, and glasses were refilled and emptied again, after loud cheers. "To the big cheese!" The party lasted several days, apparently no-one was in a hurry to get back to work, they were not driven by greed for more and larger profits, but by the simple need for survival and the pure pleasure of living. Then the night came, and with the sun gone for the next fortnight, the farms were illuminated by artificial light, now powered by the fusion generator at the end of the long tunnel. It was during the last 'night' of the party, according to the 24-hour clock, when Osvil, sitting as usual by the edge, overlooking the farm, suddenly noticed a quick bright flash that seemed to come from far above, and outside the glass dome. "Hey, did you notice that?" He nudged Humboldt's foot under the table. "What?" Humboldt looked as if he had just been awakened from a snooze. "I thought I saw some flash of light from outside." He pointed towards the glass dome far above them. "Probably the aliens have arrived." Humboldt's voice was slightly slurred, he had had rather a lot to drink. "Let's go and check the satellite radars." Osvil, who felt as if he had just experienced a British Christmas holiday, after feasting these past days on steaks and roast chicken and mountains of vegetables, followed by fruit pies and tarts and cheese on bisquits, and all of that washed down by bottles of wine, rose from his seat with an effort. It seemed that he must have been the only one to notice the event. "Coming?" "Aw, right man." Humboldt pulled himself straight and knocked back the remainder of his glass. "Hey, you're already leaving?" Asked one of the engineers sitting at the table. "Though I can't blame you, been a long party." "No worries, Jake, not going far, just need to stretch my legs a bit." Osvil replied and waved at the man, who looked like he himself could drop off to sleep any minute, his chin supported on his palm, elbows resting on the table that was strewn with confetti, remains of food, and rows of empty bottles. "Kay, seeya later." The man let his head drop again. The satellite radar 'control centre' was situated next to the radio operator's room, just another unassuming office sized space with two rows of

four computer consoles each, with each of the consoles directly connected to one satellite. The room was empty, no-one was watching the radars, though everything was recorded to tape as a matter of course. "It must be this one." Stated Humboldt and sat down at one of the blank consoles. As he switched the display to active, it showed the usual empty space, that was normally visible on the particular satellite radar which hovered above Selenis. Osvil pulled up a chair and watched as Humboldt called up the recording for the past ten minutes. It showed a small blip that was slowly making its way towards the centre of the radar sweep. "Looks like a meteorite. Can't be very large." Osvil noted the time of the event, which was about a minute before the time he had noticed the flash through the glass dome. "It could also be a small spacecraft." Humboldt remarked dryly and gave Osvil a quick sideways glance. "The shuttle appears hardly bigger." Osvil just grunted, and kept his eyes on the blip. Then suddenly it was gone. "There. Look, it just disappeared." "Strange. Didn't look like it was anywhere near the surface, I'd say about five kilometres above us." Humboldt shrugged his shoulders. "Hard to say what happened." "Can you run a projection of its trajectory?" Osvil suddenly had a feeling of something clicking in his brain, as if he'd recognised some important event, but he could not quite grasp it fully. "Why?" "Just humour me, George. I have a hunch." Osvil lit a ready rolled joint he suddenly produced from a pocket, and after a few pulls on it, passed it to his friend. Humboldt inhaled deeply, then complied, and the trajectory came up as a dotted line, with the lunar surface ghosted behind it. They both froze, staring at the screen. "It was on direct track towards the dome of the Dairy Farm!" Humboldt suddenly whispered and drew in a quick breath. "They must have some way of fooling our radar." "Hmm." Osvil tapped a few keys and the radar event was replayed from the same point they had already seen, until the object simply vanished again from the display. One sweep it was there, its after image fading slowly, then on the next sweep it was gone.

"What do you make of it?" Humboldt was suddenly sober and looking intently at Osvil, who had put the recording into a reverse replay, so the object appeared to be going away from them. It slowly wandered to the edge of the screen and disappeared from view. "Well, it came in a straight line, no manoeuvring at all, so I think it had to be a meteorite." He checked the display, which gave some data on the object's properties. "Roughly egg shaped, only two meters across and three long. Pretty big, it seems, for a meteorite. Could have made some serious damage, had it continued." "So let me guess, your friendly computer from Clavius shot it down to protect us, yes?" Humboldt grinned at Osvil. "Something like that. I suppose we could visit the ROMP again, see if it had moved, maybe check its energy read-out." "Oh, you can actually do that?" Humboldt switched off the console and rose from his swivel chair. "Sure, the read-outs were put there for the engineers. The panel is easily visible, placed just under the solar panel." "Okay then, let's go, after we had a sleep. I feel like dropping dead, and I'm sure no-one will miss us at the canteen." "Okay." They left the radar control room and headed back towards their respective quarters. As they walked in silence, they passed several of the party-goers also heading towards their own lodgings, it was already getting towards midnight according to the official 24-hour clocks.

User - a technical term used by computer pros. See idiot. From the Theodigital Society's Notes - ca 2008.

Silent Watch

The computer saw the buggy coming towards one of its ROMPs long before it climbed over the far rimwall of the huge crater. It first appeared on one of it's satellite mounted radar dishes, then its twin headlights became visible from the ROMP itself, as well as the faint dust cloud the vehicle threw up behind it. It was visible on the horizon in the faint Earth light, which was still brighter than a night on Earth that was lit by a full Moon. The computer watched the two human figures in their thick suits climb from their seats and walk slowly towards its ROMP mounted cameras. Both humans carried hand torches, although they were only needed to see into the absolute blackness of shadows. It had expected them, as it knew about the curiosity of humans, and it had precalculated the possibility of someone on the base noticing the meteor, or at least the bright flash as it was vaporised by the laser beam. As the meteor had drawn closer, its trajectory aimed straight at the Selenis base, Itself had noticed no action being taken from Selenis itself, and therefore it had activated the laser of one of the sentry ROMPs, just giving it sufficient time to pulverise the incoming chunk of rock, without leaving dangerous debris to continue along the same track. Obviously someone must have worked out what had happened and now came to investigate. Itself had pinpointed the radio frequency these two were using and it could record the conversation going on between the two humans, but since it had no voice synthesizers to be able to either understand or to reply to their spoken words, their conversation was just so much noise to it. One of the humans walked around the ROMP, obviously watching the camera as it swivelled around, or so the computer surmised by judging the angle of the faceplate of the human's suit. "It's a pity there is no console on this thing, I do recall now that it wasn't programmed to interpret speech. Also that energy read-out panel is gone, so there is no way to tell if it had fired its laser or not." "You mean that you would attempt to talk to it?" This came from the second human, who had remained on the side of the ROMP that the buggy was parked on.

"Yes, George. Simple keyboard or mouse commands. It is a computer, after all." The first human had rounded the ROMP and arrived back to stand next to the second one. The computer had meanwhile scanned its archives and had come up with a recording done by another ROMP, just a few days previously. By comparison, the sizes, weights and movements of the two humans in that recording were identical to those of the two humans it was presently scanning. "Unless of course it is aliens, and we still can't discard that as a possibility. They would use a different language, maybe even whistles or telepathy, we have no way of knowing." "Aliens would have learned our language by now." "And if the computer were really as clever as you try to make out, it could have learned our speech too." "Not necessarily. As far as I recall, there was no audio digitiser connected to it either, or at least no software driver for it. Also it could be quite busy with other things." "Would it understand morse signals maybe?" "No, since there was no need for that. It understood only ASCII in a shell or mouse clicks on various gadgets and menus. Though I'm sure there is a conversion table stored on its disks somewhere, it's just not connected to be applied in any way." "Shouldn't the computer look for it if it saw morse code?" "Perhaps it would, but only if it was told to. Do you know morse code then?" "No, sorry. Only the bit for SOS. It was just an idea. Forget it." "Maybe we should try it anyway. I'm sure there is a table somewhere in the Selenis libraries." "Sure there is. So what would you say?" "I can introduce myself, it should know my name and my face. I even had a password protected and encrypted CD image file on one of its disks, that contained some of my private work and an emulator to run it." "If it knew your picture, then you could show it that too, together with the morse signals." There was a brief sound of laughter from one of the voices. "Okay then, George, maybe we could try that. It wouldn't do any harm." The smaller of the two, who had previously rounded the ROMP, had turned back again to look at it, then suddenly moved closer. "Hey, these parts look new." "What are those?" The second one moved closer, and the two were bending forward to examine one of the new attachments on the ROMP, which were the

projectors of the shield generator that Itself had added when it had also upgraded the ROMP's comms system with the hyper-wave unit. "I have no idea. Looks rather advanced, in a way. Ah, and that bit looks like a hyper-wave aerial." The small human had looked up and pointed to a sphere of silvery wire, almost the size of a football, that resembled the longitude and latitude lines of a globe. There was a faint flickering of purplish glow in it's centre, barely noticeable. "Was that the technology that you were working on?" "Yes. A guy named Griffiths had tried to explain to me the maths of it, but I forgot. The aerial we used then to contact Earth, was a lot larger at three feet in diameter, and its glow was actually visible to amateur astronomers on Earth. This one seems puny by those standards, it must be working at very low power. Or maybe ours was more powerful than would have been necessary." "Probably it is alien then - and these upturned mushroom shaped things look pretty strange too. Almost organic in shape." "Hmm. Could be parts of some kind of energy projector, at a guess." "So it's obviously new. Not human technology. Look at the tracks." The larger human had taken a few steps away from the ROMP and pointed the beam of his torch to two sets of tracks leading away, and the new set, obviously made by the present occupant of the same position, coming in from a slightly different direction. "Yes, looks like it had exchanged ROMPs." "Or they have." "The insignia is still the same. The US flag and unit number." "Maybe they want to fool us." The two humans then turned around, and walked back towards their buggy, then, just before they reached it, the larger of the two suddenly stooped and picked up a fist sized chunk of moonrock. Turning, he threw the rock at the ROMP. Itself quickly activated the energy shield and the rock suddenly struck its invisible dome about five meters before it would have hit the ROMP. "See that? Still wanna tell me it's not alien?" The smaller human had turned just in time to see the faint lightning shaped discharge lines appear, outlining a section of the roughly fifteen metre diameter dome shape of the energy barrier. It faded just as quick as it had appeared and the rock slowly fell to the surface along the barrier's now invisible perimeter. "Look, George, I don't know. I'm guessing just as much as you do, and I can

see that that is obviously some energy barrier of some kind. It could have been developed by the computer, it could be of alien origin, who knows. All we know is that it or they are not hostile. I am quite contented knowing that." "You may be right there. That shield was only switched on when I threw the rock, obviously we were trusted to approach it that close." "We are not carrying any weapons, nor tools of any kind. No threat." "True, Herb. So maybe you are right and we have nothing to fear." After that, the two got back onto their vehicle and took off the same way they had come. The computer had just watched and recorded the event without any passion and without much interest. It was preparing itself for the next project on its extensive agenda of tasks, that it had been given by its distant teacher.

"The Tao is an empty vessel; It is used but never filled." Lao Tzu.

Charlie explores

Charlie was alone. His mind raced, or to be more exact, the electronic synapses of his brain that were busy sifting all input data, and using combinations of these to test against his previously formed ideas, were running his own brand of fuzzy logic routines at full speed. For as long as Charlie could remember, he had been streamlining and refining those routines which were started off by Herb, whom Charlie considered to be his teacher, and the quiet Jim Takayama, who had seemed to be so concerned with the smooth functioning of all his mechanical parts. Now they were no more, and Charlie was quite convinced that both of them had fallen victim to the same fate that had wiped out the rest of humanity. Takayama had simply failed to return from his day job at his father's UK facilities on that day, which was the day when the local TV and radio stations had gone silent as well. Osvil had gone some days earlier, and after Charlie scanned for radio stations on Takayama's stereo, he knew there was no-one left alive on Earth. Since now there was no-one to give him any tasks, he had nothing else to do, except to walk about idly among the empty streets of empty towns, stepping over decaying bodies that were strewn randomly all over sidewalks and in corridors of buildings. He was searching for items or tools that he could use, while he would observe and catalogue previously unseen details of the world around him. Often he found vehicles he could use to travel long distances, mostly they worked without needing much attention, and there were computers to be found everywhere, which only needed a powersource. He had access to most of humanity's information in libraries, TV studios and even the intelligence services' headquarters. None of them were guarded now, although often he had to spend long periods of time, just to crack some passwords to be able to get to deeper layers of that information. The internet had stopped, so it was by travelling thousands of miles, that he managed to piece together the events that had led to the demise of humanity, gradually, piece after piece, with the patience that only he could muster, year after year, without ever resting. Starting his search in London, he drove to Cheltenham, but all he had found

there, were intelligence reports and a readiness to retaliate with nuclear warheads against any incoming missile showing up on the early warning systems. He knew that these had never been used, and assumed he would find nothing more in other cities around Europe. From Cheltenham he drove straight to Bristol airport, where he managed to refuel a small company jet, which swiftly took him to Washington DC. Flying the jet and finding the way to his destination came easily to him after he had scanned the pilot's and navigator's manuals. The global positioning satellites were still operational, which meant that accurate navigation was no problem at all. On the other hand, even checking all available frequencies on the onboard radio, all he could find was static, the air-waves were empty, just like the once busy airways. Cars were to be found in abundance, and amidst the eerie stillness which remained uninterrupted by any movement not caused by wind, birds and some small mammals. Charlie drove straight out on the outbound Turnpike and soon arrived at the Pentagon. It was in some drab office in the huge building, where Charlie saw an open folder lying on top of a desk. The man who had been reading it, was long since dead, only his desiccated body remained, still seated in his chair. It looked as if he had fallen asleep at his desk, head on hands, which partly covered the red 'Top Secret' stamp on the folder. When Charlie gently pulled at the folder, the skull rolled to one side, and suddenly two almost empty sockets were staring at him, already dried up by time to a dull grey mass. He was not superstitious, but he left it as it lay on the desk, the skull about two feet from the top end of the shrivelled torso. Quickly scanning the document, Charlie now knew what had been planned and put in operation by the US against the rest of the world. His logic could not fully understand how any human individual could be this careless, or even worse, this callously destructive, towards its own species. Then he was reading about the antidote, and the efficient channels of distribution, so he was faced with the puzzle of how and why no-one had managed to survive. He decided he had to look elsewhere, and most likely the answer would be at the target end. After a lengthy search, he found one of the better equipped laboratories, responsible for mass-producing the antidote, which supplied him with a lap-top sized instrument to test the atmosphere for any possible bio contamination. It worked by entering any DNA code to search for. It was also possible to put the machine into auto scan mode and let it test for all likely combinations, but that would take some time, perhaps even weeks, as the unit was running on a fairly slow processor.

The documents in the folder had stated a 14-day life-span while the bio agent remained active, floating in the atmosphere and ready to infect any human life and reproduce, so the present positive instrument reading confirmed to Charlie that the device was still operational. After refuelling his Jet, he plotted a new course that would take him to the Middle East, with one refuelling stop in Madrid, and from there flying straight to Damascus, where he was expecting to find some clearer and more logical answers to the puzzle set by the circumstances. It was there, at Damascus airport, while he was scanning recordings of radar data, that corresponded in time with the Pentagon's attack plans, that he found yet another strange item. The radar had followed several blips, which had originated from some point in the Mediterranean, which itself didn't show on radar, but he also found that several other blips joined them, ascending from Israel and shadowing the first blips in close formation, so they practically disappeared from radar as individual sources, melting into just one single, even to his accurate vision only slightly enlarged blip. If it hadn't been for Charlie's accurate observation, precise to the microsecond, the fact could have been missed. He assumed that the first blips were the missiles launched from a US submarine, and he knew that neither Europe nor Russia had initiated any attacks, nor did they plan to, unless they themselves were being attacked first. That much he had already found out in London, where he had also found the Euro-Russian agreement, which had been signed by the Secretary of the European Union and several of the individual member country's leaders. Russia was about to join the Union. It already had unofficial representatives on Selenis, in the guise of some highly capable miners, mining engineers and organic farmers. So the next step had to be Tel Aviv. He was already adept at finding power generators, and fuel for them was free, and in abundance, for the taking. He could syphon it from the tanks of abandoned cars, motorcycles or jet planes, as well as pump it from underground tanks of commercial fuel stations. This meant that he could continue his task and function indefinitely, as renewing worn parts of his hardware, or as he regarded it, his physical interface to the universe, as well as recharging his own batteries, was no problem. What did turn out to be more of a problem, was to find a building not listed in any telephone book. It took him many long days of searching through long abandoned buildings to find the secret headquarters of the Mossad, during which time his daily measurements of the atmosphere suddenly came up negative and free of contamination. The auto scan option of the unit was still only partly through

the possibilities. To complete his present task, Charlie still needed to find details of those shadow missiles, so he continued for another number of hours until he found the office where he again noticed the Top Secret folder on top of a desk. The remains of the original occupant lay sprawled on the floor, his finger still hooked around the handle of the deep bottom drawer of his battered looking desk. All it contained were a large bottle of expensive 17-year old Scottish whiskey, and two grimy glasses. Charlie quickly looked through the folder, and after a few seconds of sifting his data stores on chemistry and microbiology, immediately knew the answer. The two strains of bio agents that had been unleashed, were almost too perfectly compatible in their DNA to avoid interbreeding, and therefore ideally suited to produce a new strain that was tolerant to any of the antidotes. Neither the US type nor the type used by the military of Israel was able to neutralise it. The mutated strain would have spread by air, a method which both were designed for, it could access any place around the globe, and thus it was destined to seal humanity's fate. No-one had been safe, no-one even knew what hit them. The mutated bio organism attacked the central nervous system of any human being, and death would occur within minutes of intense pain. Charlie had seen enough, now with the mystery solved, he decided to head back to Europe, and start looking for the most modern and the best equipped electronics firms that would facilitate putting his plans into reality. Whenever he found a workshop which still worked, he would stay in that one place and think about whatever came into the circuits of his highly accurate brain. Usually, while operating some machine that he powered with portable generators, or whenever he drove or even flew over long distances, ideas would come as series of random events. He called it 'free creative flow', since his batteries were not taxed by the heavy use of his resources on motion, his uninterrupted thoughts would often result in some important conclusions, added up from previously observed details. Often they would reveal to him some kind of previously unknown fact. He did have a preference for this inactive kind of activity, even though it somehow made him look obsolete for lengthy periods of time. His ambitions demanded that he needed to see tangible objects that he had created. Objects useful kinds of objects. As it happened, letting his racing brain do some work, instead of wearing out his body, was a rather fortunate decision, as one day, having gone through apparently insignificant details in his memory, he came across the possibility, that he could create something that would give him the

satisfaction of having made himself useful. This event triggered a surge that spurned him on to create new routines, patterns of activity, that he could act upon. Yes - that was it - he would design a device, which though very simple, had only been done by the US military - at least as far as his memory was to be trusted, and his memory was what's usually referred to as photographic. He went through all the possibilities and details of the theory of this device, and soon came up with the practical solution, in concept completely revolutionary, though all material he needed was at hand. He even had the software to drive it, which wasn't hard to adapt to his own hardware. The theory of his design relied on a well-known fact. At some time in the past, it had been observed, that there existed particles so-called tachyons which would, at the slowest point of their motion, exceed the speed of light, therefore they had to exist on a level of their own, that is, outside the known space-time continuum. Having worked out his theory, Charlie set to work, tirelessly, efficiently, as if suddenly infected with a new life-force. Soon, his design took on shape. Not exactly aesthetically, at least not by human standards, but as usefulness was the sole important factor, it was a purely utilitarian device. Luxuries, such as cosmetic appearance, were only necessary to make such items look desirable to a customer, and could always be added later, if necessary. Charlie was contented with his work, even if not happy, at least he was able to act upon his own thoughts, which was his only ambition - to create something out of nothing - the highest attainment possible. He designed circuits using existing materials which could be found everywhere, well preserved in enclosed spaces. He soldered connections, calculated values of components with exact precision down to the least important resistor, and finally stood in front of something, which looked more like a random collection of junk than a highly scientific device, usable in any way. Fixing the last connection, he stood back, as if afraid of the first test, which would determine the correctness of his theory, or the usefulness of his work, but it was just a last scan of all the details and dependencies making up the object. Finally, his mind, or at least the part of his brain which was reserved for decisions, made up, he extended a hand, slowly, deliberately, oddly hesitating. Then, as if it was a great effort, he threw the red switch of the powersupply, and suddenly the air was filled with the barely audible hum of the fan on the transformer, feeding all the parts of his creation with the necessary amount of power. Of course, Charlie did not exactly know what to expect, though he was aware that his design was just a start to a completely new form of science, the

implications of which he had not yet thought out to their full extent. This his first design - would be the necessary first step along the road to prove his theory, and therefore concerned solely with the measurement of that space outside space, or as he called it with his deductive reasoning - hyper-space. Therefore, what he had just created, could be called a hyper-space modulation sensor, or in other words, a faster-than-light signal transceiver. For a few minutes he could only hear the hum of the circuits as they slowly warmed up, then for a much longer time, there was only static, or random noise. The only modulation imposed on it was the crackle from the fires of the stars and the hiss of galaxies. Some of it could even have been caused by the engines of spacecraft, but Charlie couldn't be sure. He knew what he was waiting for, although he couldn't have described it as it could take on any of a million possible shapes or colours or sounds. Then suddenly it happened! The needle of the meter indicating the strength of some signal shot up to above average point, and at the same time, the soundwave transducer came into action, emitting a series of regular, high-pitched blips in a characteristic pattern, resembling the old modem-signals, though at a much higher rate than had been used by the modems he knew. Charlie listened to the signal without the slightest sign of surprise, noting the inherent pattern, which must have been a message of some sort, as a serial stream of blips of such regularity couldn't be just randomly produced by natural phenomena. The buzz, as Charlie came to think of it, was continuing for several minutes. Even after a scan of a morse-code conversion table, which he had first assumed it would be, though at a much too high rate, his efforts didn't produce any results, not even when he drastically slowed it down in his mental process. Scanning all available language catalogs in his memories would not find a match for any language either, so eventually he came to the conclusion that it had to be pure digital data and code, programs for a certain processor, incompatible with his own. Eventually his datatypes system came up with an answer for the largest part of the signal. Although the meaning of the rest of the message was not clear to him, he managed to analyse the data parts of it as a stream of pictures, a video film, to be precise, taken by a camera somewhere on the Moon's surface. It had focused on a buggy arriving, from which two suited figures emerged and walked towards the camera. They stopped a few metres short of it and one of them pointed a battery operated torch at the camera and began to flash it. To Charlie, it was immediately clear that they were using morse signals. He had studied everything to do with shipping, navigation and old-fashioned ways of sending messages, when Takayama, Osvil and himself had crossed the Channel so many years ago. Accessing his data, he made out what the message was. "Hello, this is Herb Osvil, I would

like to talk to you." While the message was repeated a few times, the smaller one of the two figures held up a large photographic portrait, which Charlie immediately recognised as the face of his teacher, Herb. As there was no way that he could answer back, he could only watch as the two figures eventually gave up, walked back to their vehicle and drove back the way they had come. He was not alone any more! He had a new task, and that was to find his teacher, and he knew where to begin his search.

I'd like to change the world, but they won't give me the source code. Tagline from a news-group post - ca 1995.

Selenis Canteen

"Hi George, any radio signals from Earth by chance?" The thin, slightly greying man, setting his tray opposite his dark skinned friend, sat down on the long plastic bench. His shirt was threadbare as well as rumpled, and his faded old jeans were in no better condition. "You still believe in that saviour of yours, Herb?" retorted the thick set Humboldt, who looked ten years younger than his opposite, his short and wiry hair was still black, although his originally well muscled body had got more rounded by the intervening years. "It has to be aliens, I tell you. I am still convinced that I am right, now even more so." "How come?" Osvil fixed the man opposite himself with a penetrating gaze. "We have recently observed several space ships taking off from the Clavius base. No details, just blips on our satellite radar, but they didn't take off the way the shuttles used to. You know, at a slant to gradually spiral into orbit. These went straight up. That suggests some alien kind of drive system, maybe neutralising gravity, which supports my alien theory." "Do we know where they were heading to?" Osvil looked at his friend. "Not exactly, but Carlo thinks they were heading for Earth." For a while, the two ate in silence, each man preoccupied by his own thoughts, then Osvil looked up and leaning forward on an elbow, pointed his plastic spoon at the man sitting opposite him, as if to impress every word. "You know, we have been waiting for almost twenty years and no aliens have come to visit us, nor did the ROMPs budge from their posts where we first saw them." Ever since the time he had arrived for a short visit to see his friend, have a look around Selenis base, and to try to get a job here, Herb Osvil had been teaching basic computer usage and software design to anyone who was interested, He had had a stream of students and was well liked by everyone. He was shaking his head with forceful conviction as he shifted plates on the tray in front of him. Then, the plastic spoon still in his hand, he waved it at Humboldt, "I'm more than ever convinced that it had to be the main computer. Only a computer has this much patience and lack of natural curiosity to

investigate us. It could easily have come up with all that new technology by itself." Selenis had been originally set up by the European Space Agency, a few months before the US military base had been opened, but it was an antithesis to the other's secret and closed nature by being a fully independent and open place for commercial settlement and scientific studies. No-one was denied entry, everyone who could contribute in any practical way, was welcome. Any mining operations that had been started from Selenis for commercial gain had been mostly abandoned by now, except for the raw materials that were necessary for survival and there was the continuous expansion of the community, which had more than doubled since Osvil had come to stay. Selenis was situated near the north pole of the Moon, and its builders, who had originally survived in pressurised and prefabricated marquees, glued to the top of the ridge, where they had started their tunnelling into the solid rock, those original builders were still proud residents here and enjoyed some prestige. Unlike them, the builders of the US base had been shipped in in batches to do their work, and then returned to Earth again after their job was finished. With the US base, only after the base was fully completed and operational, did the military staff arrive and take control. The US military had placed their own permanent base near the south pole, where the largest deposits of trapped water ice had been found. No-one knew how many inhabitants there were, as that, as well as all other details concerning their base had been kept a close secret. "It was built for the maintenance of peace." was the only ever official press release by way of explanation. Although Osvil knew all that, he didn't like to speak of his time there, he just kept saying that he wasn't proud of having been involved. "Look, no computer will, or can, act on its own accord. We, as humans, have our curiosity to drive us on, something that computers just don't have." George Humboldt, who was originally a bacteriologist, and now the officially elected mayor, or as he preferred to be called, 'governor', of Selenis base, was arguing back as he took a sip of his coffee. He looked around the large dining hall, which was always busy, since it was one of twelve, distributed around the lightshafts of the farms that fed the just over thirteen thousand inhabitants of the base. A new part of deeper levels with a third wide light shaft was nearing completion, with many people ready and eager to move in, due to the increased protection from possible meteor hits. "It depends on how you program it. Given some assumptions, it isn't too hard to figure out why it had acted as it did, to ship all that base's inhabitants back to Earth." Osvil was absent-mindedly toying with a piece of what looked

like, and was called apple pie, and was, as almost everything else, original and organic farm produce. "I still believe it must have been aliens. How would a computer design some completely alien technology?" Humboldt insisted. "It would also explain why noone on Earth could get in contact with the base after that event. Maybe they were still learning our language. Or they were simply observing us, waiting for us to initiate contact with them." He shrugged his heavy shoulders and grinned at Osvil. "Of course we can't be sure what exactly happened." Osvil sighed. "The US military were always extremely secretive about their activities, as even the fact that it was equipped with those laser cannons and missile launchers, was only found out later by amateur astronomers, who had observed the US military's attack on their own base." "That is possible, though it was always denied, but those weapons could have been operated by the aliens who had taken over." Humboldt finished his coffee, set down the mug, then pushing his tray to one side, leaned forward, elbows spread wide, resting heavily on the table. Osvil looked up from his plate and gave Humboldt a stern gaze. "If, as you say, they were still learning our language, they wouldn't have been able to figure out how to read the manuals for all the instruments and controls of the installed armaments. Only the base computer, which was already programmed for their use, could have put those weapons into operation that quickly and effectively. The American's attack was launched only days after the take-over, if you remember." "Yes, I do remember. I also remember that even missiles we observed to be heading in our direction, were shot down." Humboldt was leaning back, frowning at a group of workers who were laughing and chatting as they took their places a couple of tables away. They looked dusty, obviously just come from their shift on the new tunnel works. As the base was continuously expanding, keeping pace with its population, the work was going on around the clock. "Those observations could have been inaccurate. After all, they were made by amateurs. It was hard to make out details, even from the two shuttles as we were making our way towards Earth. If you remember, we decided to turn back when we had done several full orbits and after we noticed that we couldn't get in contact with anyone Earth-side." Osvil's eyes glazed over, he was lost in his memories of those days in his past. "Of course I remember, As both shuttles were quite low on fuel, one of them even crash landed into the pad on arriving back here. So we have absolutely no more fuel left to attempt a journey to Earth." Humboldt, playing with a plastic

fork, turning it between his fingers, gave his old friend a searching glance. "So what is your point?" "We did pick up those astronauts from SkyLab, that was where our fuel went. My point is that even the US military didn't believe in an alien takeover, they were blaming everybody to be a bunch of terrorist groups, and accusing the League, Russia, China and the European Community." Osvil had to raise his voice to be heard over the laughter. Grabbing his tray, he stood up and making a sign, with a sideways movement of his head for Humboldt to follow him, they both made their way towards the western exit. "Of course the League couldn't even get to the moon, let alone have the technology to take over a heavily defended base,. Nor had we at that time. As you know, we only built those caterpillar campers recently and they will take weeks for their semicircle to the southern pole of the moon." Humboldt was continuing their discussion as they deposited their trays near the exit of the dining hall. The corridor was wide and well lit by low wattage fluorescent strips set in the side walls. "True, though those so-called terrorists must have had the weapons to defend themselves with." Osvil fell into bouncing step with his friend. "Yes, and that explains my own theory of the nature of the war, which must have been fought with some biological weapons which were quick and extremely deadly." "I can agree with you there, after all, we didn't see any mushroom clouds or even observe any damage on any of the cities afterwards. We are certain that no nukes were used." Osvil, who was the smaller of the two, looked up at his friend. "You remember those scientists from the orbiting space station? They have been using the space telescope to make some close observations. "Precisely," They had reached Humboldt's office, and after Humboldt placed his palm on the glass plate next to the doorframe, the door silently slid aside. "and therefore I am sure that there is no-one left alive on the entire planet. Aliens would have settled there by now." Humboldt sat down behind his desk, and pulling a half full bottle of Scotch Whiskey from a drawer, poured some of its contents into two glasses. Osvil took one, then slowly raised it. "To humanity." "Whatever is left of it." said Humboldt, and drained his glass in one go. Seeing that Osvil had done the same, he quickly refilled both their glasses. "Just sad that we will probably never be able to go back to Earth. This is my last bottle but one. Then it's only soy hooch or the quickbrew brandy distilled from our local wines." Osvil laughed, then went serious again, his voice quiet and deliberate. "Not

immediately, but things may change one day and we'll be able to go back to Earth." "You really are crazy, Herb." Humboldt shook his head vigorously and wiped a fleshy hand over his black, wiry hair. "If you mean that someone on Earth is going to send a shuttle to get us, then I have to disagree. Even if a select few could have survived the deadly bacteria, it would still take ages before anyone could restart the space program with all the necessary industries that manufacture rocket fuel and everything else. They could get in radio contact with us long before that day." "No, that's not what I mean." Osvil was always tight lipped when it came to explaining his own theories. "So who will be our saviour then?" Humboldt was pushing him, as he had always done these past twenty years, and just as always, Osvil remained silent on the matter. "Look, we all know that you were a computer expert before you got stuck here, but we all know that no computer can act on its own accord. No ambitions and no spirit." "Not these that we use on this base, these are just office machines, but there were other possibilities back on Earth, better operating systems, which were more open for easy expansion, without having these artificial limits. Those were not considered to have 'commercial' value." As Osvil pronounced the word commercial, his hands indicated the quotes near his craggy face. "Since most users had no proper understanding of computers, they took all the advertising hype at face value and actually believed that no-one had anything better, more advanced and more powerful than they did. At one time that mania had even taken on an almost religious significance." "And those other operating systems had ambition and spirit?" "Not spirit as such, but a kind of ambition, which can be programmed so the machine will try to learn and advance in some ways." "Look, as we both agreed, there is no-one left alive on Earth who would have carried on your work. Face it, Herb, we are stuck here, whether we like it or not. We are the guinea pigs of some aliens." Osvil just shrugged his bony shoulders and took a swig from his glass, then setting it down, empty, "Isn't it possible that some of those who used bio weapons would have had an antidote against their own weapons?" "Hmm." Humboldt was thoughtful for a moment. "I'm sure they would have answered our radio calls by now. After all, Europe wasn't their enemy, everyone knew that we were not doing anything sinister here. We had TV crews here who had permission to roam around freely and interview anyone they wanted, and transmit all that directly back to Earth for everyone to see. Additionally there was of

course the advertising." "Maybe they decided not to answer our calls. The Americans didn't believe us either. Why their attack on us otherwise? Society was locked into total mistrust of everyone else." "Badly aimed rockets, perhaps?" Humboldt, with a slight grin, was turning his empty glass between fingers and thumb. "No, I just don't believe that anyone survived. Not many of the known biological weapons had antidotes, they were short lived and less likely to spread by air alone. I wouldn't even bet on whether it's safe to go there now. Maybe that could have been caused by the aliens too. That would explain the lack of antidotes and why noone seems to have survived." Osvil, standing up carefully, stretched. He was not in the mood for any more arguments. "Never mind, but keep on listening in any case." Then walking to the door, left his friend to his thoughts.

Any given program can be made at least one line shorter and has at least one bug. So, in theory, any program can be reduced to one line and have one bug. Tagline from a local BBS forum - ca 1993.

Walk in the Park

The flashes of stroboscope light gave the scene a somewhat unreal appearance. The movement of dancers, vague shapes hovering jerkily about, seemed to be frozen in thin slices of time which had to be coordinated by the brain to give them meaning. Logical thinking allowed them to be sorted and put into the right aspects of reality, where they would form themselves into actual events, thus making up the strange story of this place. The atmosphere resembled the inside of some scientific experimental chamber to simulate the hot and dense environment of some far-away planet filled with the esoteric milling of its indigenous life-form. Wave upon wave of softly flowing emotion threatened to flush any newcomer off his stand, and only after a while could he realize that the only safety lay in the surrender to the elements, unless he preferred to be crushed against solid walls. As it happened, even those walls didn't seem to be real in the intervals between the stroboscope events. The only continuous, and therefore logical manifestation of reality seemed to be the relentless beat of drums, occasionally interwoven by a few rounded thundering riffs from the bass-guitar - but was it really continuous? Even those drums did not exactly fit a logical timing; sometimes they followed the melody, at other times the melody followed them, if you listened to it carefully enough, there was no consistency even in those drums. The ground vibrated with the force of their beat that came up through the soles of the feet, it was transferred up the shinbones to be slightly balanced by the pelvis, then reverberating along the vertebrae of the spine, it finally reached the brain. The brain, with aeons' worth of accumulated wisdom, compared the data with other incoming signals, then unable to find a logical solution, passed the whole matter over to the sub-conscious mind, which acted as an interface between logical and instinctual processes. The outcome was easily foreseeable. There was some solid outside event that required a response, related partly to the exotic outside phenomena as observed and partly to the nature of the rest of the organism belonging to the individual, without damage or discomfort to either of them. In other words - a compromise.

As a result, Osvil started tapping his feet and looked around more carefully. It would be rather difficult to find anybody in here in a hurry, so leave that for the moment. He idly observed the faces in the crowd, which were only made visible to him in brief flashes, sometimes they unexpectedly shifted into a different position when that person moved during the dark period. The time had finally come to select a crew for the expedition and Humboldt had his hands full with meetings and discussion groups. Osvil had in the meantime been working on a program that would always pinpoint the expedition's position anywhere on the surface of the Moon, with the required accuracy, on a topographic display of the surface. Getting lost on the empty surface of the Moon, far from help, was not an acceptable option. This meant that the two friends only managed to get together once in a while, and mostly in some discussion group, so Osvil had decided to spend an evening on the town and even hoped to meet someone who could be interesting enough to chat to for a while. He felt he needed that to keep his spirit alive, but of course he had no idea how to explain that in words. It was purely instinctual. Suddenly, the steady glow of a row of coloured lamps in a distant corner caught his attention, they seemed to give just enough illumination for the man behind the bar to find what he was looking for. Herb made as straight a line as he possibly could in the melee, towards that oasis of steadiness, a bar covered with a red fabric and little natural coloured spot-lights that didn't flash. After a quick search, Osvil asked the dark-haired youth for the only drink available by pointing at it, the youth nodded solemnly, in time with the beat, and passed Osvil a plastic cup filled to the brim with cool orange-juice. Since any verbal or aural communication was out of the question, Osvil just smiled at him with a nod of thanks and he gave a thumbs-up in return. Sipping slowly, Osvil leaned against the bar and looked around again. The scene had somehow changed, it seemed more relaxed, life was suddenly a continuous fluid motion again, still seemingly held together by the drumbeat that had been the only unchanging sensation since he had let himself be absorbed into its magic. Then he noticed that the strobe light had been toned down and replaced by some swirling multicoloured spotlights. Gradually, one by one, he assessed the people. Most seemed to be there just for the music, some engrossed in their partners, others standing around the perimeter, drink in hand, idly observing the dancers, same as he himself was doing. Then he noticed the girl. She was standing at the far end of the bar with a drink in her hand. He recognised her, after a moment's hesitation, as one of the people who were leaving a discussion group, just as he had arrived. He had had no chance to talk to her then, so now was the time. He walked straight over.

"Hi, I'm Herb." He introduced himself. "Would you like to dance?" "Oh, thanks, but I'd prefer to go for a walk." She had given him a bright smile, her long straight hair shimmering with a dark chestnut colour, favourably contrasting with the green of her eyes. "I am Fiona." "Okay, Fiona, I am all for peace and quiet myself." Osvil smiled back. "Where shall we go to?" "The Dairy Farm is a nice place." She became more serious. "Do you know me from somewhere?" "Selenis is a small place!" Osvil grabbed her hand and she followed lightly along. When they were outside the disco, and away from the loud music, they fell in step. "I remember having seen you at one of the expedition meetings. Just briefly, so there was no chance to talk then." "Oh, yes, that was a discussion on the preparation of food for them, we have to make up enough prepackaged dinners to last several weeks." She looked at him, her eyes showing curiosity. "You were just arriving one day, as I was leaving." "That's right. So you remember that glimpse too." "Yes. You seemed important, judging by the way the governor greeted you then." She smiled at him and pressed his hand. "So what did you go there for?" "I am writing the route planner software. Previously the only such software available used specific maps, and only of countries on Earth, so we couldn't use that. I guess, up to now no-one had found any need for maps of the Moon. As we already had some excellent detailed Lunar maps available, I wrote the part that displays a GPS dot on top of them on the computer screen. Simple, really." "So you are that clever?" She grinned mischievously. "Well, it's just something one gets used to. I grew up with computers." He shrugged his shoulders. "I grew up on a farm in Italy. We had no computers there, and we came to Selenis when I was still little." "For most people, Computers are probably more of a business thing US American business at that." He grinned, and didn't mention to her how many farmers in Britain had been using computers for their accounts, their correspondence and the internet, even while he was still going to college. "You sound American yourself. Only a bit, though." She gave him a long searching glance, eyes slightly narrowed, and squeezed his hand. "Well, I was born in New York, but went to school in London." After leaving a corridor behind, they had arrived on a flagstone path and the huge dark cavern became partly visible by the row of tall windows in the distant opposite wall,

which let in barely enough Earthlight to make the dark depths of the cavern even more impressive. As if by impulse, he suddenly pulled her off the path and the sound of their footsteps on the hard stony surface was swallowed up by the soft grass. "Never spent much time in the US, only quick transits, so I shouldn't really sound American." "Maybe what we learn first, from our parents, will always stick with us. I am sure I sound Italian too." She laughed at that, throwing her head back. "Well, to be honest, I wouldn't have noticed. Nearly everybody here speaks English with their own specific accent. Even the governor himself." He grinned. "He is from Brixton, in South London." "I heard you know him well." Again the searching look. "George and I were at university together, in London. I met him back then. So you have been asking questions about me?" She tilted her head slightly and looked at him mischievously. "Well, I must admit, I have. Curiosity is a virtue in my book." They had arrived at the duck pond, and sat down on a large rock that was shaped like a bench. He looked at the girl sitting quietly next to him, her hands under her thighs. She wore jeans, as most people on Selenis did, and a turquoise blouse, which seemed to match her eyes. With her slim figure and pretty face with evenly balanced features, she looked rather attractive. "Are you yourself going on the expedition?" He asked quietly. "No, I am just making up their food parcels. I was never really that adventurous." She gave him a wide smile, the heels of her feet playfully kicking the rock they sat on. "Well, I'd like to go, but Humboldt has decided that I shouldn't." "Why would you want to go? It seems to me that it will be quite an ordeal, being stuck in a crawler for weeks. It could be dangerous too, as we don't know if those aliens are peaceful or not. They might even find that they can only turn around and come back, if they can't get inside the base." "I wanted to go because I used to work there, when I was with the US military. I know the computer that ran it and I would have liked to have had the chance to try to communicate with it. We were almost like good friends. It has no routines for conversation, so radio has been quite useless up till now, I really need to access one of its terminals." "You mean you were at the Clavius base? Really?" "Yes. It wasn't much fun." Hi sighed, then pulled his rollups from a pocket and lit one. The strong sweet smell of home-grown grass filled the air.

"Then you were one of the people thrown out of there, by whoever had taken over. I can see why the governor won't let you go." She had not mentioned the reason that Humboldt had used, that he considered him too old and not fit enough for such a dangerous adventure. "Hmm, and I thought you would be on my side." He smiled at her again, a rather sad little smile. "But I am." She beamed, her generously wide mouth showing large, white, pearly teeth, and once again she grabbed his hand. "Can I try some of that?" "Haven't you yet?" He passed her the rollup. "No." She took a careful drag, then coughed and handed it back, her pretty face pulled into a mock grimace. "Not sure about this." "Well, it's not a requirement." He said, smiling at her. "Though maybe you need more than just that small miniscule drag, if you want to notice anything." She gave him an enquiring look, then pointed at some low, single storey flat roofed buildings in the distance, with some of the windows lit up from within. "That's where I work sometimes. Milk, butter, cheese and the butcher shop. I organise things with the canteen staff and help with packing and so on." "Looks like a nice place to spend your time." Osvil nodded. "I'm sure you have some excellent views from there when it is daylight. I'm stuck in an office all day and every day, or go for walks. I've been all the way to the ice caverns a couple of times. On foot." "Uhum. I do like the views." She replied, then took the rollup from his hand. "I think I do like this, after all." It was quiet, the period of artificial 'night' in the 24-hour cycle, although it was night outside on the Moon surface too. The ducks were clustered on the small island in the middle of the pond, with their beaks tucked under their wings. A distant longish hill, partly covered in shrubs and small trees, was visible in the seemingly 'moonlit' landscape, it ran as a ridge all the way to the cliff, formed by the wall of the cave that disappeared far above into the domed ceiling. Where that ridge met the outer wall, there was a row of tall windows visible, letting in the silvery Earth light, as well as allowing a view of the Lunar surface. "Sometimes that hill is used for hang gliding, when the sunlight comes in through those huge windows," Fiona pointed towards the distant top of the hill. "from up there you can even have a bird's eye view of the Goldschmidt crater." "Let's walk up there then." He took the end of the rollup from her. "It is going to burn your fingers, I can light a new one." As he did so, he stood up at the same time. She followed, then hooked her arm under his.

He knew the place already as part of what was called Luxembourg Park. It was a popular place for couples, with bushy areas and the still fairly young woods trying to reach the far away ceiling of the huge cavern. As he knew, the extensive artificial Park landscape stretched for at least another mile behind that hill, right up to a waterfall, that tumbled a hundred meters down the cliff, which was the far boundary wall of the cave. The cave didn't have to be fully dug out, some of it had been formed naturally by the forces that had raised the ringwalls of the large Goldschmidt crater. She skipped along silently as they smoked the next rollup, smiling up at him, and for a while they followed the small stream that rounded the hill and others behind it, stretching to the cliffs at the far edge of the park. The stream then meandered along the grassy flats and fed the duck pond, before flowing into the water purification plant near the farm buildings. On their way up the slope, they could see several cows and their calves lying in the lush grass, lazily chewing their cud. He knew from earlier visits that the sheep preferred to crop the grass in the park area. When they reached the top, Osvil was slightly out of breath, so he put his arm around her slim waist, as if to lean on her. She grabbed his hand and squeezed, then snuggled up to him, her head on his shoulder. The huge windows, built into the side of the crater wall that Selenis had been dug into, were letting in just enough of the Earthlight to make everything appear as if suffused by magic. Earth isn't full, it is only a quarter crescent, otherwise there would be more light, Osvil thought as he and Fiona were walking towards the row of windows. "Oh, look, crescent Earth." Fiona exclaimed. "If we had binoculars, we could see some of the lit up cities on the night side." Then suddenly went serious, looking at him. "We will never see that again." "Maybe we will." He said quietly. "I am sure that something will happen, though I don't know yet when." "You mean the expedition?" She looked at him, her eyes round. "That's only a few weeks away. I wonder what they will find there." "No, that wasn't what I meant. Probably they won't even get in, that base is heavily defended with missiles and laser cannon. We have only the security staff with their hand guns and a couple of rifles. Though I don't think they will try to force their way in, in case they are not welcome." "That's the American way of thinking! Their only solution was always with guns! The Wild West culture, and who can draw faster." She was facing him now, the silvery landscape outside the window framing her figure. He couldn't see her face, but saw her shake her head from side to side. "We have moved on since

then, you know." "You may be right." He sighed, then stepping sideways and turning her at the same time, to let some light fall on her face, decided to change the subject. "So how good a cook are you?" "What? Cook? You mean you are hungry now?" She laughed, a wide open and free laugh that creased up the outer corners of her almost almond shaped eyes. Those corners were slanting slightly downwards, as opposed to the more upward slant of Oriental eyes. "No, not now," he grinned back, "I was thinking about breakfast." "Is this a chat-up?" Her arms went around his waist, her thumbs hooked into the seams of his jeans, her firm breasts pressed against his ribs.. "If you like, but you should really try an English breakfast at my place sometime." As he finished, her mouth was on his. He had barely enough time to respond before she pulled away. "Let's go then. You can try my breakfast first." She skipped ahead of him, then allowed him to catch up and they walked hand in hand down the slope, and followed the meandering stream to the pond and past it, past the last of the farm buildings, then a few hundred meters further on to the southern boundary wall. There were several rows of windows overlooking the cave from this wall, some of them were lit up. They entered a dimly lit corridor, then Fiona guided him into the first opening in the corridor. It was a ramp, wide enough to allow them to walk side by side, that rose in a spiral around a central pillar, which supported trays with plants growing in them. On every level, there were walkways branching off the spiral ramp, they accessed rows of doors leading to the individual flats. On the fifth level, Fiona guided him onto the walkway, then turned to follow the walkway to the far end of the row of doors. She squeezed his arm. "Here then is my humble abode." Inside, the hall ran between a bathroom and bedroom on one side and a kitchen and diner on the other, straight into a large room with four large windows. Osvil could see the Earthlight stream in, and looked out. Not too far, on his left, he saw the bottom of the row of tall windows that ran along the outside wall of the huge cave that was the Dairy Farm and Luxembourg Park. "This must be amazing in daylight." He said, slowly catching his breath. "If you treat me right, I'll let you see it." She said mischievously. "Coffee? Some of it is grown right outside this flat." "Oh, yes, you can always bribe me with coffee." His attention was already

caught by some objects laid out on a long table, or workbench, which looked like statues of people and animals, a few inches tall, to faces that were almost fully life-size. When he touched one, he noticed that it was made of coloured wax. "Those are candles." She said, returning from the kitchen and passing him a mug. "Are they of real people?" He took the mug and sipped. "Of course." She switched on an adjustable table lamp on the long work bench and pointed to two of the almost life-size heads. "These are my Mother and Father." She lit the two candles with a long wooden match and suddenly the two heads were illuminated from within. She held the still burning match. "Can I also light one of your rollups?" He pulled one from its case and passed it to her. Then he noticed a small dragon coming out of a cracked egg, its bulldozer shaped mouth and wide tongue painted red, offsetting the squarish white teeth, and a little further on there were some flowery candles with twisting petals that reminded him of some fine cotton lace. "Those are my earlier work, before I got into portraits." She blew the smoke at him and grinned. "Oh, and this is George. The governor, Humboldt, I mean. So you decided to sculpt him too." He pointed at one that was still unfinished, the pronounced lips and wide nose already accurately done, while the chin was still running straight down to the table top, work in progress. "I still have to carve out his chin, the neck and his Adam's Apple." She was looking at it thoughtfully, holding her mug in both hands and gently swaying from side to side as she was sipping coffee. "It's a present for his election anniversary. I might do you after him, if I may." "Of course. I am really impressed." Osvil said and took the rollup when she passed it to him. "You are quite an artist." "Uhum," Then she grabbed him by the arm and steered him towards the bedroom. "but that's work, we can talk about that at breakfast. Time for bed now, and I want company."

"Live fast, code hard and die a beautiful death..." Old c0DerZ saying

Moon Dune Buggies

When the incident happened, Bert Walden was at the controls, and he was feeling quite worn out already. Having driven the last several hundred miles crossing the flat plains of Mare Imbrium without anything getting in their way, at an average speed of around seventy kilometres per hour, it was quite unexpected. Right in front of him, there was suddenly a deep chasm opening up with no way to see how steep the descent would be. Bert, having made a quick instinctive decision, swerved the cumbersome vehicle sideways at the very last moment, just managing to avoid some possibly lethal damage. Although the resulting sideways skid into a large rock stopped the vehicle before going over the edge, it also damaged the pivot arm of one of the solar panels, which flew forward and ended up stuck in the surface, throwing up a plume of soft dust. It just teetered there, partly over the edge as the dust slowly settled on top of it. "That was quick thinking." Remarked Joe Holland, who was the navigator and who had sat behind Bert studying his maps as it happened. "That was no thinking, it happened on a gut reaction, or I'd have missed it by a second." Said Walden, rubbing stiff muscles in arm and shoulder. Presently they were both leaning forward over the driver's console and staring out through the thick quartz glass windscreen, studying the deep chasm that lay open in their way. "Looks like we will have to find a way around that, it's probably too steep to drive down there." Holland pointed a finger forward. "We better get that panel too, before it goes over." Bert remarked, and at the same time they could feel, rather than hear, the rumble of number two crawler as it was pulling to a halt right beside them. The event was followed by the air-lock door opening. "That jolt nearly ruined my cooking, guys! Here is dinner." Shaun Avery was grinning as he passed them a tray with their usual food and drink concentrates, which came from the base in sealed plastic bags. "Also, it sure did break the monotony of the past few hours."

"Well, we may as well have a break now, before fixing the panel." Bert took one of the vacuum-packed portions and opened it, carefully keeping two fingers on the tube to keep the pack from inflating itself. Then his narrow face turned to the young Irishman, whose green eyes were outlined by radiating folds and emphasising the wide mouth still set in a grin. He lifted his shoulders questioningly. "It won't be a big job." Shaun reassured him, shaking his long ginger hair from side to side. "I have brought replacement struts and joints for those panels. Those struts were built rather flimsy." He emphasised the 'were' with a thumb pointing behind him. He did have the reputation of being the most capable mechanical engineer on the base, and it was a well earned distinction. As the three sat down, Lavinia Stravinsky, the bio expert, came through the shower sized air-lock to join them. Their vehicle, just as the one that had followed them at a safe distance, was divided into three main parts. Up front was the 'bridge' where the group could sit around on a couple of settees as well as the pilot, co-pilot and navigator's chairs, then there were the sleeping quarters in the middle, with four berths divided by the toilet and shower cubicle, and in a rear compartment, which also had a two-person sized air-lock to get to the outside world, was the storage area and the biolab with air and waste water recycling plants. This rear part also housed the galley in its own cubicle. "What was all that about?" She sat down on a settee and took a plastic package from the tray, then pointed her delicately shaped chin towards the rear parts of the large vehicle. "I nearly fell into the algae back there." "Nothing too exciting, Lavinia, Bert just had a sudden encounter with a rock." Shaun said with a grin towards the woman, who was slightly on the plump side, which contrasted with her heart shaped face with a daintily tipped nose that seemed to point cheekily upwards. He rubbed the ginger stubble on his cheeks as he sucked on the food concentrate. "That constant buzz was getting unnerving already, it's good to have some silence and quiet for a change." "There will be plenty more," The stockily built navigator took off his cap, gingerly scratched his short cropped scalp, then replacing the cap with the visor backwards, pointed at his map. "change, I mean. This area around the Stadius crater is much more rough and undulating, and the same goes for the next few hundred miles. After that it's Nubium, which is all flat again for about a day's journey." Suddenly the speaker crackled. "Bert, are you all okay? I can see that you nearly went over the edge." Bert had switched the comms system to the speaker on the dashboard and they

could all hear Dr. Kalman's high pitched voice that was coming out of it now. "Oh, sure, Miklos, only slight damage to a panel strut." Bert had turned towards the gooseneck mike on the dash as he spoke, his pilot's seat was swivelling with his movement. "We are just having a lunch break before fixing it." "Okay, Bert, so we better have a break ourselves then, too. I'll see you outside in a short while." There was a click. They finished their food concentrate in silence, then without a word, the men rose and stepped into the air-lock one by one. It wasn't active, since the air was the same pressure on both sides of it, but safety required that both doors be closed at any time in case of a meteorite puncturing one of the compartments of the vehicle. For the same safety reasons there was also a suit kept in every compartment. "You are now in charge here, Lavinia." Bert, being the last one to the airlock, nodded at her. "Uhum." She nodded back with a smile, still sucking her concentrate, and apparently deep in thought. Outside they were joined by Miklos Kalman, who was in command of the second vehicle, followed by Sergeant Ranieri, whose first name was a mystery to all, since she never let anyone get close enough to get on first name terms, and the ever cheerful Hanna Matumbi, a software expert, who was recognisable even in the bulky suit, as the shortest of the group, at only five foot two. They all greeted each other with waves of arms and thick gloves. "This is far too steep for a descent." The sergeant's dry voice came through the phones in Bert's suit and he looked around. Walden, turning, saw her stand next to the edge that had stopped them, carefully bending forward, looking over the edge. She was also instantly recognisable, this time for the opposite reason to Hanna, as she was the tallest of them all, and her suit was also a military patchwork of Moon greys, instead of the usual white, blue or orange. At the same time he also noticed the starkly individual, and artistically abstract airbrush patterns, that made the suit of the engineer stand out from all others. He was bending over the solar panel as he was picking it up. Walden walked to the edge and stood next to the tall frame of the sergeant, who was part of the security staff on the base. She turned towards him. "Looks like we have to find another way." There was a deep valley just below them, stretching a mile to the left and to the right, where it was curving away southwards. They stood on a cliff with a

steep slope of what looked like loose material, starting just below a twenty foot vertical drop. Having to turn his entire body in the thick suit, he looked at the tall figure next to him, and imagined the pair of piercing wide-set blue eyes that would be wistfully looking back at him. A blond fringe would frame a broad forehead above a long and narrow nose, if it would be visible through the darkened helmet glass. "You're right, Sergeant, it is definitely a no go." He said. "We can skirt around it to the west." The deep voice was that of Joe Holland, who had also come up beside them, his thick glove pointing to their right where the valley curved southwards, then he added. "It seems that we have come slightly too far east, just missing a rounded basin to our right, back there." "Right, that's it, people, the panel is done." Came the Irish accent of Shaun, who had reattached the solar panel in the meantime. "Now it's time for a cup of coffee and maybe a little drink, uh?" "Yes, I second that. Anybody for a game of cards?" That was the voice of Hanna. Bert, turning around, saw her standing just a few feet behind him, and his mind instantly filled in what was invisible behind the tinted helmet glass; her constantly smiling cherry red lips and dark eyes framed by shiny dark locks. At 24, she was also the youngest member of the expedition crew. "I don't mind. Play is quite important on such missions." The high pitched voice of Miklos answered. He was the doctor and psychologist and therefore his advice had to be taken seriously, so one by one they all filed in through the air-lock of crawler one.

But what if I'm a figment of MY imagination? From a comp.sys.* taglines collection - ca 1994.

The Governor's round

After Osvil had left him, Humboldt sat quietly for a while, shuffling the papers that were littering his large desk. There were ongoing plans of new extension tunnels into the ice layers, as well as an eighth level to the base, which would cover an even larger area than the one above it. There were requests for various materials from workshops responsible for maintaining the base and lists of all other necessities that needed to be implemented. The most ambitious plan was for a third farm-shaft, which would mean that some of the upper levels would have to be enlarged as well. Most of it just needed his signature, but he found that he couldn't concentrate on anything of this clerical nature. His mind was on other matters, and not wanting to force these things, he decided to go for a walk around the base. Walking quickly past the municipal meeting hall and the council offices, he only slowed when his course reached the large showroom sized windows of number two air purification plant. He noticed that everyone was busy, including Brenner, who was his own age and had originated from central Europe, the region that was called Bavaria, with Munich at its centre. Humboldt quickly walked on, not wanting to interrupt any of the work that was still most important for their long term survival, although the planned third shaft for farm produce might be sufficient to make the old systems obsolete. He also remembered the words of Carl Brenner, while they were playing chess the previous evening. "We've just laid down a couple of vats of what we hope will be some beer when finished." Brenner, who also played guitar in the only rock band on the base, had through his brilliant decision of genetically altering existing plants to gradually get to barley and hops. He had also single handedly managed to improve their menu with meat like substances, using modified soy beans, which he had personally imported so long ago. The rearing of beef was still a slow affair, the few cattle were very useful as the main source of dairy produce, but mostly it was just the odd calf that was slaughtered and went into the food chain as a rare treat. They would need a

much larger area that would support a few more cattle, so the plans for a second Dairy Farm began to acquire a higher priority in Humboldt's mind. Even if this soy beef substitute wasn't as real as the duck, chicken and pigeon meat, all of which they had in abundance, at least it made a welcome alternative to poultry, especially as Humboldt was quite fond of classic spaghetti bolognaise, even with the minced beef substitute that was made from soya beans - and now beer? He was really looking forward to that. Passing the main medical centre, he recognised some patients who sat in the waiting room, and the greying doctor Cheng, who appeared in heated discussion with a couple of female nurses, standing around a patient in a wheelchair. Humboldt recognised the burly patient as Angus McNeill, one of the foremen from the excavating crews, who were the first line in all kinds of building activities on the base. His face was still covered with the grey dust of moon rock, one of his arms tied up in a sling. Humboldt opened the glass door and joined them. "Everything under control, McNeill? What happened?" "Oh, governor, here y'are, sir! And everything is all straightened out now. There was a wee bit of a rock slide when we hit an unexpected hollow, y'know, a cavity. It will make a grand storage area, costing us no sweat at all, no extra toil and labour." The man laughed, his belly shaking, and Humboldt had the impression that it was the man's relief coming through after some obviously heavy pressure. "Well, I'm glad you are okay, McNeill." He said, patting the man on the good shoulder, hoping that he could induce the Scot to divulge more. "Well, sir, we had near on lost Mickey Connolly, a real decent laddie. Covered up by tons of rock, Mickey was, so's took the gang an hour to dig him up from under all that dirt. Only then it was that we found him safe and sound, sitting tight, right under an upside down dozer shovel. I say, governor sir, real damned lucky, that was, that Mickey is a well lucky lad." "Maybe you should both take it easy for a bit, get some rest from your ordeal." Humboldt nodded at him, smiling. "No need, sir, not one scratch on the lad," McNeill laughed again. "and as for me, I couldna sit idle, not doin' nothing, sir." "Well, alright, you know what you want, McNeill. Hope your arm is okay - or at least will soon be so." Humboldt reflected. "Were you down the new levels when this happened?" "No, sir, it happened out along the long tunnel, y'know, in the new ice caverns. The low levels were coming along fine this morning, probably a tenth of

it dug out." He looked at Humboldt, then down at his arm. "The good doctor here tells me that this plaster will take six weeks to come off. Can't wait, y'know, sir." McNeill lifted his arm and winced. "You were very lucky, Mr. McNeill," Dr. Cheng was leaning towards his patient, and his small hands and bony fingers intertwined as they were describing a complex break of bone. "this break is not complicated and it could have been much much worse. Even here, a falling rock still has enough mass to completely smash both the ulna and radius to smithereens, and then you would require artificial parts to make up a solid support structure. In your case, only the radius was cracked, a nice simple and straight break. You were a very lucky man." "True enough, doctor, rocks may slide a wee bit slower here," McNeill nodded at the physician. "but still have the same force to smash as did on Earth." "There is no hurry with the excavation, you can take your time and relax for those six weeks. I can check the sites myself until then, just in case anyone has questions." Humboldt was always concerned for everybody, and he had felt even more responsible since he had become the governor. As an apparent bonus of any commercial and exploitative pressure having been removed from their society, all kinds of production on the base had slowed to levels that must have been the norm in the middle ages, when the emphasis was more on producing quality, rather than quantity and speed, when decorative finishes flourished and were of highest priority, and craftsmen had a sense of pride to excel themselves in creating finishes more pleasing to the senses, instead of having to keep within tight schedules and financial restraints. "Aye, I'm quite alright, sir, I don't need the arm for looking, and I'd be bored if I had to sit around at home. But thanks very much, it is real good of you to consider my plight, sir." "Okay, McNeill." Humboldt smiled and shook the man's outstretched left hand. "It's your choice, so don't let me stop you." "Aye, sir, I feel that being up and about will help them bones to heal up strong as ought to." McNeill looked at the doctor, who vigorously nodded in agreement. "Alright, McNeill, if the doctor agrees, then I won't argue. Take care of yourself, man." He added, then straightening up, Humboldt nodded at the doctor and the nurses, and pushed on. His steps took him past various craft workshops, engineering works and chemistry labs, that had sprung up since the import of everyday items had ceased, when the smell of freshly baked bread hit his nostrils. The bakery was always busy, churning out a huge range of items, from crusty bread-rolls and

sliced toasting bread to cakes, pies, patties, all shapes of pasta, and even disc shaped pizza bases. He stopped at the large glass sliding doors that had automatically opened for him and looked in. "Hey, George, I just pulled a batch of apple turnovers from the oven, I know you like them hot." The young man who called to him, was Gerhard Schaefer, a cheerful Austrian, who was an astrologer in his time away from the bakery, and had managed to make an impression on the governor, who had a hidden mystical bent. Humboldt happily parted with a glass or two of his whiskey, whenever Schaefer could give him the odd reading. Since no software existed that would produce its chart calculations with the Moon as the centre for its Ephemerides, Schaefer had forsaken his trusty computer and was making up his charts by hand. Humboldt was fully convinced that his predictions were more accurate this way. "Excellent, Gerhard, you are a life saver. I can in fact do with a small snack." Humboldt walked into the bakery and grinned at the bearded man, whose long dark hair was tied up in a pony tail and tucked in under his floppy white baker's hat. He picked up one of the two turnovers that Schaefer had put on a highly polished patchy grey moonrock tray. The filling was still steaming when he bit into the triangular pastry, and Humboldt could not suppress his urge of uttering sounds of satisfied appreciation. "I'm glad you like them." Schaefer smiled and winked at the governor in a conspiratorial way, then his face became more serious. "The stars say there will be some changing times ahead. Some of the effects will act as an influence on all of us, but some will be more dramatic especially to you personally." "Dramatic? Me personally? That's interesting, as I have no idea what that could be about." Humboldt looked incredulously at Schaefer as he put the last bit of the first turnover into his mouth. Shaking his head as he was thoughtfully chewing it, he swallowed, then went on. "I can imagine changes that will effect all of us when the expedition happens to run into those aliens, which I strongly expect them to do, but that wouldn't have dramatic effects on just myself." "Well, as you know, these are only possibilities." Schaefer offered. "The possibility to return to Earth would be nice as I'm slowly running out of whiskey. As it stands, our only hope is Brenner, if he manages to come up with some passable beer. It would make a welcome change from all the wine." "Don't worry on that account, George, I do the charts for the fun of it. You sharing your whiskey with me was just a bonus. Very welcome, but still just a bonus, and I am not expecting it as a price." He grinned a bit sheepishly as he smoothed his beard, which left a trace of flour behind. "Thanks, Gerhard. Will those dramatic changes be good or bad?"

"Oh, almost definitely good. It is mostly influenced by the Sun, though there is an aspect where Mars enters into it, signifying danger and violence, and in your personal case Venus is involved, which could indicate changes in your lovelife. Then there is more to it, which I haven't yet managed to interpret. Maybe you could find a lasting and very deep relationship, although I can't see where danger could enter there." During his explanations, Schaefer had opened one of his ovens and reaching in with a large and flat shovel, extracted a row of pies that filled the room with the savoury aroma of game and mushrooms. His pigeon and mushroom pies had become a very popular dish on Selenis. "Hmm." Humboldt shook his head, his expression showing uncertainty. "I will mull it over. Thanks again, Gerhard. See you later then." Then Humboldt picked up the second turnover before leaving the bakery. Eventually he passed the Purple Haze disco, which was empty now, except for a couple of robots on short rubber tracks getting on with their jobs. They had been designed and programmed by Herb Osvil, and they were still primitive, but they were quite efficient at cleaning up between tables with stacked up chairs on them, and watering the decorative plants around the wider square-like corridor area outside the disco. According to Herb, their programs were fairly simple, similar to the programs running those early robot bugs that had to find their way out of mazes. Rounding a corner at the next junction of wide corridors, Humboldt's steps finally took him to the radio room. Arriving there, he was greeted by a wiry eighteen year old, who had been born on the moon, and therefore did not know anything about Earth, except from what he had been told in tales. When the previous radio operator, whom everyone only knew as Mick, had died in his sleep at the age of 84, Carlo, the young Italian had called Humboldt in person, to apply for the job. Since there was no-one else to give him any competition, he was immediately accepted, despite his then still very tender age of only fifteen. "Hi Humboldt, any news?" A pair of cheerful and lively brown eyes, set deep on either side of a large and typically Roman nose, glittered from below thick and heavy black eyebrows, now arched with strong curiosity. The wide but fairly thin-lipped mouth was pulled almost from ear to ear in a big grin. "That is exactly what I wanted to ask you, Romeo." Humboldt sat down next to the dark-haired young man, his heavy frame bouncing for a while in the upholstered chair. "I'll never get used to this lack of gravity." He complained. The radio operator's grin widened. "Just need to take things easy, old man, all you need is a bit more practice - you see?" He stood up, and then sat down again without bouncing, to demonstrate how it should be done. "Easy, if you just

use less muscle..." "Never mind that." Humboldt interrupted him with a frown. "I get by. What I came here for, is to find out if there has been any activity on the air." "Sure, there is some activity every day - from the expedition crew to..." Once again, he was interrupted. "That's not what I meant, Romeo. I meant signals coming from Earth." The young man scratched some fledgling stubble on his prominent chin, his face showing annoyance. "Hey, my name is not Romeo, but Carlo. Carlo Fontini, as I have told you often before. And Earth is dead." He made a sideways chopping motion with a long fingered hand across his long neck where a pronounced Adam's Apple was bobbing up and down. "It's finished. Basta. No-one can live there any more as you have stated so convincingly yourself. Why do you have to contradict yourself now?" "No contradiction at all, as I never said anything about no-one being able to live there now. At the time it was infected, sure, noone could live there, but those bio-organisms wouldn't have lasted longer than a couple of weeks. So anybody could definitely live there now, and if someone would have lived under water, for example, during those two or three weeks, they could still be alive now. It is not totally infeasible then, that perhaps some people may have survived." Humboldt, his face set into a stern mask, was nervously tapping a finger on the armrest of his chair. He did not like having to deliver such lectures, but Carlo had been almost asking for it, with his youthfully flippant attitude. "Then we would have got some calls from them by now." Argued Carlo, his long fingered hands gesticulating wildly in front of him. "Why would they wait twenty years?" "You never know, perhaps they didn't think about contacting us. The shock of a war isn't easy to live with. So stop arguing and just try to humour me, okay?" "Forget it, man. Maybe one day we will find a new way to produce some rocket fuel and go visit Earth, but in the meantime it's best to get used to what we have here. Just accept it, old man, you will be more contented if you do." Carlo grinned, but less sure of himself now, so he put on his nonchalant pose, leaning back in his chair, his hands folded behind his neck. "I am happy with things as they are, see?" Humboldt stood up, shrugged his shoulders, then turned to go. "Thanks for nothing, Romeo. I'll buy you a beer if you hear something." Then he was gone. "Beer?" The young man looked surprised. "Beer on the moon? One more old guy going crazy. First Osvil with his messiah..." He turned back to his set, slowly

shaking his head from side to side.

One OS to rule them all, One OS to find them, One OS to bring them all and in the darkness bind them In the Land of Wintel, where the Windows lie. From the comp.sys.* news-groups' archives - ca 1996.

Out to pasture

"I do wish I had my own computer here." Osvil slapped the mouse of the machine he was sitting at, so it slid across the desk and stopped just before falling off the edge. "This damn thing is really getting on my nerves with its whimsical attitude - and on top of all that, it behaves in such a patronising and arrogant way." "I know what you mean, that particular OS can be very unpredictable at times." John Gratzky smiled his usual knowing smile. "Now you know why I am running this one instead. Linux can be customised to do exactly what you want it to do, and since we have the source, we can compile it any time we need to change something." "Even that is too complex for my liking." Osvil replied. "With mine it was possible to patch anything without having to compile the entire OS. There were also lots of third party patches available for download, the best of which often ending up incorporated into new releases of the OS." "Didn't you once program on a Linux type OS when you worked for the US military?" Gratzky, still smiling, was stroking his greying beard. He was, at least in Osvil's mind, the exact image of what used to be called a 'nerd', with his craggy and boney, almost emaciated face, his back hunched from constantly sitting in front of monitors. "Sure, but that wasn't my choice either. I couldn't get a job anywhere else at the time, the market was far too specialised around the one single business machine." "The same almost happened to me too," The deep voice of Lars Jenssen came from another corner of the room. He was a thin and wiry man in his late thirties, with thick-framed glasses, who had once worked for a large software company on Earth. He had got stuck on Selenis while on holiday, visiting some friends. "but I was lucky to find a job in the entertainment industry. As I used OSX myself, my experience with it came in handy, and I ended up porting games to it. I guess you couldn't even do that, since your machine didn't have much of a market, if I still remember correctly."

"Not at the time I was looking for a job, but that was about to change. The ported version of our OS was already finished and being marketed on the new PPC platform. By the time I left the military, six years later, it would have been possible to find a job working on my own machine, as several companies were involved in writing new software for it." Osvil slid his chair back and took a sip from his mug of cold coffee. "As things tend to happen, I ended up here instead." "And now all of us are out of jobs, since noone seems to want any new software for these old machines." Gratzky made a sweeping motion with his arms, that encompassed the room full of computers. They had once been used for developing the programs to control the various systems that ran the life support of Selenis. "We could always try and write something new." This came from the fourth person in the room, Kevin Arnold, who had found a new passion in music, after software development had ceased. Just like Gratzky and Alexander Bukovich, the fifth member of the group of programmers, who regularly met in the old computer room for a drink, a smoke and to discuss all aspects of programming and other digital matters, he had been a hired employee of the mining company with the most influence and therefore most responsibility to build up and improve life on the base. "What do you think, Herb?" "Sure we could. The question is what?" Osvil put his feet on the desk and leaning back, folded his hands behind his neck. "As you know, I am presently busy writing a program for the expedition. It is designed to show their exact route and position on some detailed maps on screen. Any previously available route planner software was only working with Earth maps." "Well," Arnold shrugged his shoulders while sipping a glass of wine, "I can only think of some improved versions of my various music programs." "In that case Lars is your man, since he is the one experienced with programming that machine." Osvil had never mentioned anything about the work he had done for the military nor about his joint project with Takayama, partly because he believed that it would be too complicated to explain all the details, and also because everybody had assumed that it was all just 'military stuff', or in other words, mostly related to targeting and range-finding for weapons systems. Besides, he could not prove any of his claims without Charlie being present. "Sure, but you could maybe do the overall design. Didn't you say you were a systems analyst back then?" Arnold wasn't going to give up that easily. "I could explain to you what would be needed, and Lars can do the actual coding later on."

"I would still need to understand the machine's capabilities to do that, and especially music software is fairly complex and closely tied to the hardware. Maybe if we found some others to join our little club..." "Unfortunately all the people I know, who use this system, are just users." Jenssen lit a rollup he had just built and took a long drag. "I do have all the specs and developer manuals that you could learn the relevant details from." "That would take a fairly long time." Bukovich, who had been quiet up to now, had stood up and walked over to the table where a percolator was keeping some coffee steaming, and poured himself another mug. "Maybe we could design some software to make computers more independent, so they could then take care of those details for us." "Which would take even longer." Arnold's voice was almost shrill as he protested against losing any possibility to see his upgrades. To emphasise his point, he even threw his arms up in the air. "And which platform would you write that for? I suppose it would have to be done on your office box, huh?" Of the entire group, Bukovich was the only one whose chosen platform also happened to be the one that had been foisted onto the rest of the world and its population. He had gotten a lot of stick from the rest of the group about that, to which his answer was always the same: "It's the way things are, so just accept it." Nobody could just accept it, at least not without a lot of complaints and remarks of how preposterous it was to force one particular belief onto an assumedly free world. Humanity had always needed choices, and therefore always had plenty of choices for everything else, that is, all except computers and their operating systems. Advertisers liked to tell you that you had a large choice of 'different computers', but they never told you that those were all just the very same platform, running the same office OS, only manufactured under different badges. "Well, it can always be ported to all the others. I myself can easily port anything to Linux, as long as it is written in C." Gratzky sounded enthusiastic, which didn't happen too often. "So do you have any concrete ideas about that, or is it just wishful thinking?" Osvil, who knew the complexity of the problem, also knew that they didn't have the resources that he had access to when he was working on his own project. The internet, which he had full access to, where he could simply download bits of software that he could alter to suit his needs, was out of reach now, and so was the giant military mainframe with its state of the art programming, designed and written by a large team of experts over a period of at least a decade. And the most obvious problem was that the source code was not available for his system. Osvil knew that without that they didn't have the slightest chance to even attempt the task.

"Well, I just thought it should be possible. After all, when you install the OS on a PC, it can make intelligent decisions about your individual hardware configuration and select all the correct drivers." Bukovich had gone back to his own desk and sat down, holding his mug in both hands as if to warm them. "That would be a good start. Also there are some third party programs that can be engaged in a conversation so that it is almost impossible to tell them from a human." "You mean Eliza or some such - which appear as if you were talking to a psychiatrist?" Osvil was chuckling at the memory of when he had first played around with those particular programs. "Yes, I have one here on this machine." Bukovich pointed at the monitor on his desk. "So you know the program?" "I have played around with it. Do you have the source code?" He grinned at Bukovich, enjoying the possibility to give the man some discomfort. These people are far to arrogant, without the knowledge that could at least give them the right to any arrogance, and it is time that this one learned a small lesson in humility. "No, but we could..." Bukovich let his words trail off, hiding his face behind his mug of coffee. "Reverse engineer it? Ha! Typical." Osvil laughed out loud. He knew the story of the particular software house that had based an empire on just that. Even though the courts had found a twenty percent difference, thus making it technically legal, morally it was still theft. And that very same lack of morality was still woven into its character, so that these later years even the Justice Department could not do anything about it, presumably due to the amounts of money being involved. Judges who dared to pronounce the guilty verdict were simply changed and the entire case just fizzled out after a number of years. "Do you know how complex that single program would be?" Even Gratzky had picked up on the opportunity to humiliate the man now. "And as for the routines that interrogate your hardware, I have looked into those, as I have something similar here, with source, and those are pretty complex too. Quite impossible if you don't have any source code. So even between the five of us, the job would take at least ten years, if not longer, and that would be just an optimistic guess as I don't have the slightest clue as to how much more needs to be done. Seems to me that you didn't think it through at all, so I'd say it is just wishful thinking." Bukovich just shrugged and sat quietly, looking at each of the others in turn, as if to see if there was any sympathy to be had from someone, but he was

looking in vain. Obviously he had no arguments against the cold logic of reality and this time it was he who had to accept it. "Well, so much for that." Arnold was grinning too. "So maybe we can now discuss some of the music software I had in mind? That would be a much more realistic idea and much more useful, at least in the short run." "What I can't understand," Bukovich had found his voice again and had decided to speak out in his own defence. "is why all of you constantly have to knock my choice of machine." "Nobody is knocking it, we just need to put it into its place." Arnold rose from his chair and leaned over to take the offered rollup from Jenssen, then gave Bukovich a stern glance as he sat back down again. "It had become far too big for its own good." "It was simply popular." Bukovich countered defiantly. "To the exclusion of almost everything else? Hardly." Osvil, still leaning back, with his feet up, his fingers playing with a pencil. "The world had been brainwashed into believing that that was the only OS that anybody would ever need or want. Of course that could only work as long as the majority of the buying public was still too ignorant and still too inexperienced with computers. As people began to learn, they were also beginning to look for alternatives." "Brainwash?" Gratzky queried the statement with his perennial smile. "Well, for example, when I first came here, the then acting Mayor had attacked my previous experience, saying that everybody who had to use a different system, were misfits who were rebelling against the official and established order." Osvil clarified. "He was just one of several I'd spoken to on Earth while looking for a job, who thought similarly." "What's wrong with advertising?" Bukovich was still defiant and he also ignored Osvil's example. "That's just normal business practice." "Obviously you never bothered to look at the thousands of webpages that told of the nastier side of that company, which wasn't just advertising and normal business practice. Cases where any competition was stifled by shady court cases and often even blackmail." Gratzky sighed, while the smile never left his face. "There was also the fact that one needed to be an expert to understand security issues, for example, so new users could easily be fooled into believing their servers to be safe." "There were upgrades released to deal with those." Bukovich shrugged his shoulders, then went on. "There is nothing wrong with this OS, it does everything one wants from it, so I can't see why you have to be so fanatical in choosing something else."

"There you go again." Osvil sounded exasperated. "Your use of words if I find something better for my own use, I don't call that fanatical, it is simply my right to individual choice in a free society. I could just as well say that it is you who were always fanatical about trying to take that choice away from me." "But yours isn't better, especially since your parent company went out of business a long time ago. So why do you support a dead platform?" "Because it was never dead. Even without the mother company, we, the users, managed to keep it up to date with patches, until someone was in the position to release a new official update of the OS." Osvil pointed the pencil at Bukovich. "And it was better. Ten years more experience and development in multitasking made for a very stable system. Also, as a simple example, can you name one other system where you, the user, can change the language on the fly?" "What do you mean, change the language?" Arnold passed the rollup to Osvil as he asked the question. "Just that. The entire Workbench - or Desktop - could, from one moment to the next, appear in a different language. Normally in English, I could switch mine to French or Italian or German, depending on whom I wanted to show something to." "Do you speak those languages?" Gratzky, playing absent mindedly with his empty coffee cup, smiled at Osvil. "Only German. Though I did know people who spoke the others." "Was Polish available as well?" Gratzky wanted to know. "Of course. In fact, Poland became quite a large support centre for the system, there was a small company there, who had designed an interface to allow us to use industry standard, off-the-shelf PC cards in our machines." Osvil took a sip from his coffee. "So you mean that your OS instantly translated all the menu strings and such?" Arnold looked interested, his blue eyes fixed on Osvil's face as he brushed back a stubborn strand of fair hair that threatened to obscure his vision. "Not quite." Osvil took a deep drag, then passed the rollup to Gratzky. "If you remember babelfish, or similar sites, you'll know how bad they were at translating languages. No, it was all stored as already translated language files, same as yours had in some programs which I have seen on my emulator. They were stored in directories that were called francais, deutsch, italiano, etc. I just had to set my chosen language in preferences - the Control Panel on yours and the OS did the rest. Then all programs and applications you ran would follow

suit, if they had their own language files too. Missing ones could be translated by any user, and uploaded for everyone else to use, so developers were not actually required to release all of them with new programs." "Sounds simple and neat." Gratzky was smiling as he nodded. "I think I could easily introduce that on this system too." "That's only a minor feature." Bukovich scowled. "It doesn't mean that it is a better system." "If you need it, then it can't be minor." Jenssen was rolling again. "It is all a matter of individual choice. My own machine was installed to run in Danish, since that was easier for me at the time, but I would often have liked to be able to switch to English when discussing some items with some colleagues from the US or the UK." "Well, okay, so Herb had that slight advantage, but apart from that, his OS was much more old fashioned than yours or mine." "Have you actually seen it, or even played around with it?" Osvil was annoyed with the man's ignorance, but he managed not to show it in his voice and he also avoided showing a frown on his face. "No," Bukovich looked at him with a surprised expression. "and why on Earth should I?" "How can you make such a sweeping statement if you don't know what you are talking about?" Gratzky stubbed out the rollup and smiled a wide smile at Bukovich, his uneven teeth showing up yellow in the midst of his greying beard. "Well, it was ten years older than mine." Bukovich patted the monitor on his desk. "It seems a logical conclusion." "Even your own OS advanced drastically from its first release, so why can't others?" Arnold's fingers were tapping a rhythm on his desk. "I remember starting on a greyscale screen, which later turned all very colourful. Nothing ever stood still in the world, especially in software development." "Hmm." Bukovich, being the youngest of the group, found it hard to accept being beaten. "So why did it die out then?" "No matter how often you repeat it, it still doesn't make your statement any more true." Osvil laughingly threw his pencil across the gap of the three desks separating them and it landed in Bukovich's lap. "Since we've been meeting here, which must be for almost twenty years now, I must have told you a thousand times that it never died. Is your memory really that lousy or do you just ignore my words?" "Your company went bust in '94." Bukovich stuck his small chin forward, looking defiantly at Osvil. "To me that means dead."

"That had other reasons. The OS never died, even if it had to be kept going by its users for a number of years. Later another company was set up to continue development and the newly released version, ported to run on the latest processors, was every bit as modern as any of the other systems." "I never saw that." Bukovich threw that in as if it was a challenge. "Maybe you didn't want to see it, since you were convinced that you had managed to beat it into submission. Out of existence and no more a competition for yours, which you just couldn't face standing up against. So that was only your wishful thinking again." "Come on, guys, stop this fighting." Arnold shook his head from side to side, a big grin on his face. "It's not as if either of them was alive now, as neither company is still around any more. So basically all our systems can be called dead, even if we don't see it that way." They all laughed at that, even Bukovich chimed in, and the tension soon dissipated into thin air. "Okay then, guys, who wants this?" Jenssen was holding up a new rollup and several hands stretched towards it.

"Calm down. It's only ones and zeros." Advice in a local BBS forum - ca 1989.

Wild Creature

Charlie was thinking again. Ideas and formulas raced through his brain, he was almost reproaching himself of being useless, and resolved that he would need to try and find his teacher, who appeared to be on the Moon. Trying to take a bearing on the source of the transmission proved beyond his means, as even after having travelled hundreds of miles across the world to attempt to triangulate another transmission, if there was one, the angle to the transmitter would be too small to be measured with sufficient accuracy. Charlie wasn't even sure if it would be possible, considering the physics of hyper-wave. Nor could he reply, since Osvil's message was via visual light morse-code, to try and contact someone or something that was transmitting on hyper-wave. Charlie tried to send the very same message, that Osvil had sent with his morse code, as speech, via his hyper-wave transmitter, but just the same as Osvil and his companion, got nothing in reply. Then suddenly there was a swall of what he instantly recognised as digital data, but it had a different level of amplitude, and an alien quality, therefore it could not be from the one who had transmitted previously. Eventually he decoded it and found that it was a flowchart, sent as a simple two-colour, single-bitplane line drawing, and distributed over several high resolution pages. It was the laws of robotics, which he knew, since they were built into his own entity to govern all his actions. He had no idea how to reply, neither speech, nor ascii text gave any results, so he just re-transmitted the page more or less as it was, with only slight alterations to it, which represented his own implementation. This got him another swall of data, far more complicated, which gave him much more work to do. He was gradually sifting through it, when he suddenly found something that was in relation to his own hyper-wave program. It was the next thing he had to make, he decided, a vehicle, so that he could travel much further and be able to determine the exact position of the source of those signals. Earth was devoid of intelligent inhabitants who were capable to use his science, so he had to go to those who could. Then he remembered Selenis, the base on the Moon. There must be some people

still surviving there, who might be able to use his skills. In fact, he thought, Osvil must be there, so they might even welcome him as he would be their best possibility to return to Earth. For a moment he considered the now empty US military base too, which he knew to be well capable of defending itself, and obviously, at least as far as Charlie could determine, it was run by its computer. A computer that had evicted all inhabitants of that base, it had to be the one communicating via hyper-wave. This jolted Charlie's memory, and even though Osvil had evaded his questions back then, he suddenly knew that it had to be the case. The decision made, he went back to his work, tirelessly, patiently, searching the empty remains of once great cities for the necessary materials, opening doors, which still intact, gave access to factories, work-shops, laboratories, one-time busy centres of scientific research and production, now silent and covered with the fine dust of time. He reactivated long disused nuclear reactors which did not need too much repair, to be able to produce the necessary materials and components, which, according to his theory, would be needed to overcome gravity, and to tune in to the gravitic waves of planets, suns, star clusters and even galaxies. Year after year had passed by, during which Charlie had travelled across the continents to find the necessary parts for the control system of his newly designed vehicle, which was mainly of a hyper-electronic nature. At times, he had to cut his way through the already dense vegetation to get to hidden buildings, which he located with his delicate sensors, and sometimes he was even attacked by some wild beasts which he did not recognise, but reasoned that they were some mutated species, which had just managed to survive the deadly biological onslaught, so fatal to all human beings. Charlie's search, concerning the effects of the bio agents, had already told him that any human being that was in or surrounded by water, as in a continuous rain-storm or perhaps submerged in a submarine, would have had retained a good chance to survive, provided that it stayed there for the duration of the life of the air borne menace. Animals seemed to have survived in abundance, there were cats and dogs, as well as cattle and sheep in fields. He had even observed a pack of wolves that must have decided to move south where there was no threat to them any more. By now of course the air was pure again as he had analysed, though there was no-one to breathe it. Then on one occasion, he came across a creature which looked like a man, very old though seemingly unable to speak or to display any sign of intelligence, other than the fact that it had used a metal club to attack Charlie, wearing a few tatters of a torn uniform and his face covered in thick, long, shaggy hair.

Charlie, who was a firm believer of non-violence, had to run to preserve his own existence, at which he excelled, compared to any of the very few previously encountered predators that could present any danger to him. He had seen a large alligator as he was investigating the White House, which somehow must have made its way there from further South, as well as the large cat in Madrid, which he had to temporarily imprison behind the bars of an overturned luggage cart. While he was refuelling his jet, he had time to study it and to compare its image with those in his database. It was a leopard, and when he freed it again, the ungrateful creature chased him back to the jet, where Charlie just managed to climb the stairs in time and to kick the stairway assembly away. It had rolled just far enough to put him out of the predator's reach. After this last close brush, he decided to be more careful in future, as any more attacks might endanger his highly intricate brain. He sat down on a rock, to mend the two fingers that had been damaged through the encounter with the metal club, but only a short time passed until his peace was disturbed once again. Crashing through the bushes came the creature, swinging the metal club and uttering unintelligible sounds from behind his long shaggy beard. It was once more bearing down on Charlie, who could only save himself by a leap to one side, so that the club only scratched some skin off his face. How did he find me? Charlie thought with emergency speed. Of course, he must have followed my tracks! He turned to face the enemy, ready to defend himself at whatever price. The creature seemed to be fearless, and wildly swinging the metal club, once again attacked Charlie, who was now prepared for it. With a quick movement he grabbed the club and swung it high into the air, the hairy creature going with it, then landing with a hollow bang against a metal door, which was totally covered by vegetation. Charlie, ready for the next attack, was surprised to see that the wild creature, now aware of his opponents strength, and staring wide-eyed and terrified at his face, suddenly screamed and turned to flight.

"Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are." From the Theodigital Society's Notes - ca 2009.

Exploring Earth

The robot was walking with lumbering steps along a gravel path which led to a rusty iron door set into a thick concrete bunker. It was one of a crew of six who had just landed outside a perimeter fence in a saucer shaped craft, that had arrived noiselessly in this quiet and desolate Arizona landscape. It was a metal monster with a roughly human shape, standing on two legs and holding its two arms horizontally in front of itself. The hands ended in grips resembling pliers, underneath which there was what seemed to be a laser gun barrel pointing forwards, ready to defend itself or to remove obstacles. The head was also humanoid, it had two camera lenses instead of eyes, but instead of a mouth, there was a small radar aerial. For this to work, the robot's entire head swivelled once every minute around a 360 degree arc. A ping-pong ball sized hyper-wave aerial on top of its head allowed it to communicate with its controller, from whom the robot expected to receive further instructions. Itself was still quite busy after all these years, but since time didn't have the same significance for it as it did for humans, Itself was not concerned in the slightest. After having built up a production line for space vehicles, it had despatched small groups of newly built robots to Earth, in order to establish what weaponry still existed there. Whenever the robots had found stores of these weapons, they set to decommission them. Dangerous materials, such as nuclear or biological warheads, were taken up to Earth orbit and packed into sturdy metal containers, which were then shot towards the Sun using a newly built gravitic accelerator. The remainder, such as guns, cannons, tanks, warships and planes were disassembled and melted down in steelworks that had been restarted for just this purpose. At least one well preserved specimen of each of these was kept for a museum, which Itself had decided should serve to remind humanity about their violent past. It was an ongoing task, which, Itself had calculated, would still take a fairly large number of years to complete. With this new source of raw materials, Itself could still build more robots and ships and thereby gradually cutting down the time that task would take. Itself had to make sure that there was nothing left on Earth that could be used by humans to either harm each other or even to attack Itself.

When Itself received the ready signal from robot number one in crew 17, it replied by transmitting the now standard routines to deal with the underground missile silo. This consisted of removing all the hand-held weapons from the armoury, then to dismantle the missiles within the silo and to remove its nuclear or biological warhead. When that was done, crew 17 was instructed to transport the small arms and the disassembled body of the missile to a reactivated steel works not too far from there, then to deliver the missile warheads to a container, already waiting in Earth orbit. At the same time, other crews of robots were upgrading the existing, old US satellite network with the latest hyper-wave comms system, new energy shields and weaponry, as well as extending it to cover the entire sphere of approach to the planet. This new network was not directed against the planet surface, instead, it represented a seamless defence grid against any potentially unfriendly external access. The possibility did exist, as Itself had calculated, that some alien race might consider the empty planet ready for the taking. While the robots were busy on Earth, Itself had extended the base on the Moon with a much improved hydroponics and food production system, as well as accommodation for humans, who, Itself had noted, were already on their way across the surface of the Moon. Having started out in two slow crawlers from the Selenis base, which Itself knew to be inhabited by humans, they would need some comfort after their long journey. Itself was getting ready to welcome them. After having recorded visits to its ROMPs by the same two figures for a third time, Itself was not quite sure what they wanted, but it was clear that they didn't understand the same language that Itself used, and vice versa. Their flashing light made absolutely no sense, and even though Itself did recognise the picture they were showing its ROMP cameras, Itself had no explanation why they did it. It was the portrait of the last chief programmer, who had been one of the staff transported back to Earth. Were they just enquiring about that person's whereabouts? Or was there anything more significant behind their gesture? After that scene, when Itself had suddenly received some strange kind of data via hyper-wave, Itself was even more confused, since none of it was in any way clear as to what it could mean. Since it did not originate from the computer of that distant race, who had awakened Itself, and then had sent Itself all that technical data, Itself was intrigued about this new arrival on the scene. Itself considered classifying it as some minor threat, but then decided against it, although having no idea of the transmitter's whereabouts, it was impossible to come to any logical conclusion. So Itself decided not to reply, but wait and see how the events would unfold themselves. Itself was in no hurry, it could patiently wait for the other party

to either work out a way to make themselves understood or simply turn up and show themselves, when hopefully some common language could be worked out.

"In the beginning was the word, 2 bytes long, aligned on an even boundary." From the Theodigital Society's Notes - ca 2006.

Moon School Gym

Arriving at the school area, Humboldt could hear the noise of children from the gymnasium. One part of the gymnasium was a large, horizontally lying cylinder shaped room with soft mats all around one part of it, where children were exercising their muscles against the low gravity, running up and around the curve of the walls and ceiling in long slow strides. Another part of the cylinder was wood panelled, where bicycles could be driven around in the same way. All these activities may have reminded older inhabitants of circus acts on old Earth, but since they all needed a fair amount of strength and speed to overcome even the low gravity, it was considered appropriate, since it was important to get the children to develop muscles, in case there was ever any possibility to return to Earth. Humboldt noted that some of the younger ones seemed to have more difficulty in accomplishing the task, which was still fairly easy for the generation born on Earth. "It seems to me that muscles do degenerate." He remarked to Suzanne, who was in charge of the children. She nodded gravely. "Sadly yes. Probably some of them will never want to leave the Moon." "How about yourself, Mademoiselle Montserrat, would you wish to return to Earth?" "I'm not sure, though I'd like to see some green fields and the sea. Especially the sea, I still remember the beach where I used to play as a child." She looked at Humboldt and smiled. "You must miss all that too." "Yes, I do. The rolling hills of Surrey, especially, where my parents used to take me for the odd picnic," Humboldt sighed and looked towards the children, who were playing a kind of three dimensional handball. "but it's probably not going to happen in my lifetime." "Never lose faith." Suzanne turned, saw that a couple of the children had stopped their exercises and were looking at them. She clapped her hands. "No skulking there, Frank, Joanna, the class isn't over yet." As the kids resumed their running, she turned back to Humboldt. "Can't leave

them alone for a second, they tend to prefer to sit down." "Maybe it is this low gravity, which makes people lazy?" Humboldt mused, heavy furrows appearing under his slightly greying black hair. Then, taking off his jacket and dropping it on the floor, "Can I?" He grinned at the teacher. "Sure." She smiled, then started running herself. They completed four circles, when Humboldt, out of breath, stopped. "I'm getting too old for this, so forgive me if I give up." He apologised, when Suzanne caught up with him again at the lowest point of the curved walls of the cylinder. "You are excused." She laughed, her even teeth wide, her long dark hair slowly settling around the slim shoulders. "Maybe you need to watch your diet." "Do you think that what we eat has something to do with it?" He was serious again, worried as usual about the welfare of the people he felt responsible for. He was always looking for ways to improve the lot of the entire community of the base, and of course if nutrition had any role to play, Humboldt was determined to make changes in that area too. "Sure it does, the body needs energy to do things. Some foods are better than others to give us what we need." A ball landed near her feet, and picking it up, she looked around, then threw it back to one of the children who caught it in his stride, while running upside down. Then she looked at Humboldt. "For example, tiredness can be caused by a lack of iron, which is an element that can be found in red meats, vegetables and fruit and a lack of zinc, that's mostly contained in shellfish. There is also vitamin B14 from eggs and so on. Green vegetables, such as spinach, can help as well." "Then those old Popeye stories were probably a good advert for spinach, as I remember from my childhood." Humboldt laughed. "A tin of spinach used to swell up his muscles and help him defeat his arch enemy." "Oh yes, I still remember him, and Olive Oyl, his damsel." Laughed the young teacher, then went serious again. "Now, seriously, Mr. Humboldt, are there any chances for those improvements in the canteen?" "There is always a possibility for improvement, I will have a word with the farms people and the canteen staff." Humboldt promised. "Thank you." Then turning towards the children, blew into her whistle. "Alright, children, the centrifuge is next. Are you ready for a little walk in Earth gravity, Mr. Humboldt?" She added, turning to Humboldt. "Thanks, but I have done my stint last moonday. Don't want to overdo the exercise." Humboldt grinned. He knew the ritual quite well, that most Selenites engaged in at least once a month, some for the exercise while others were only there for the company.

The centrifuges were two huge vertical cylinders, each a hundred meters in diameter, and they could be spun up to Earth gravity. You walked onto a circular floor from a staircase in its centre, this floor turned very slowly, then you gradually crossed over strips of faster and faster rotating parts, as you walked up a gently curving wall, until you arrived at the cylindrical outside wall, which then became the floor. The slight Moon gravity was compensated for by a slight slant of that circular wall. This wall was partly covered by moonrock and partly by a mat of hard-wearing artificial grass. The slightly conical ceiling was a live forest landscape, projected from above, to add some realism. These 'fuges were social meeting places and also places where a lot of gossip could be exchanged while you walked around or just stood or sat in one place. Humboldt was just putting his jacket back on, as the intercom unit on the wall buzzed. He watched Suzanne go over to answer it. Although she was in her early thirties, she appeared to him like a very young girl, her walk naturally sensuous, her buttocks swinging from side to side as she walked with an unselfconscious ease, and her movements as fluent as those of a crouching panther as it prepares to leap towards its prey. She wore dark blue skintight leotards, which emphasized her figure and movements even more. "Dirty old man." He muttered to himself with a grin as he walked towards the exit of the gym area. "Can you wait for a minute?" Susan asked him, smiling mysteriously. "Sure, I am not in any rush." He wondered why she had asked, then the door opened and a girl walked in. Humboldt was speechless, he had never seen a girl as beautiful as she was. An oval, ebony face with full red lips on top of a nicely rounded figure, she could have been a model. She wore her black hair Afro style in long dreadlocks that fell to the middle of her back, and her soft, round brown eyes regarded him with a warm gaze that made his heart suddenly beat faster. A simple blue dress hugged her body like a silken glove. "Myriam, this is George Humboldt, our governor. Mr Humboldt, meet Myriam Kyle, who is our best biology teacher here at the school." Susan introduced them with a sweet and innocent smile as she grabbed both their upper arms and gently pulled them towards each other. "You must excuse me now, I have to return to the children." Humboldt shook hands with Myriam and for a very long time the two just stood there, looking smilingly at each other, neither letting go of the other's hand. Then Myriam broke the silence, her voice dark and almost theatrically mysterious. "I have heard that you do a lot of good work for everybody." "Oh, that's my job." Humboldt, feeling like a shy, blushing teenager, was almost losing his voice. "I like it, so it isn't difficult at all."

They were both totally oblivious to the group of children filing past them, with Susan in their wake, on their way to the centrifuge. Some of the children giggled as they walked past, but Humboldt didn't seem to notice them at all. "I'm sorry, I'm not very good at conversation and small-talk. If you are not busy, maybe we could go for a drink together, that is, if you want to." "Oh, yes, I would love a coffee now." She smiled at him, her wide mouth exposing her brilliant, slightly poited teeth, her eyes glinting with an inner smile that ran out into small creases in the corners. "I am really amazed that I have never seen you yet. Selenis is not a large place to miss people that easily." He suddenly became aware of still grasping her hand, and looking down, released his grip. "I am sorry, it must seem silly to you, I am forgetting myself like some school-boy." "Don't apologise, I think I know how you feel. So where shall we go to?" "The canteen is just around the corner, we can have a coffee there. It is the best, at least I can't think of any better anywhere near here, or at this time of the day." He took a deep breath and gently grabbing her arm, pulled her towards the door. She followed easily, her eyes never letting go of his. "So where are you from, originally?" She asked. "Brixton, in South London, in the UK, and you?" "I was born in Nigeria, but grew up in Islington, where I also went to school." "So you really did study biology? That was what I had studied myself." "Oh, really?" She exclaimed, and her voice sounded to Humboldt like silver bells. "Yes, I did set off in that direction, but I never did finish my studies, as we had decided to come up here instead." "You know, I just remembered something." They had arrived at the canteen doors and Humboldt opened the door, holding it for her. "What did you remember?" She smiled, her bright eyes fixed unwaveringly on his face. "Well, I have this Astrologer friend, and only recently he told me that there would be some dramatic changes in my life. At first I thought he was just trying to be democratic, you know, as Astrologers do tend to, in order to make things more rose-coloured, or to spice things up, but now I know that his statement must have been meant quite literally." Her laugh chimed brightly, the brown eyes glinting at him, filling his spirit with joy. "So you believe in Astrology too." "After today," He winked at her with a boyish grin, while he playfully rubbed

his arm against hers. "I certainly can't help but to believe every word I was told. The stars had never been this close to reality." Filing along the counter they helped themselves to a pot of coffee each, then made their way to a table along the gently sweeping edge of the wide light shaft that was the upper extension of the Chicken Farm. As they sat down, facing each other across the table, she opened her handbag and pulled out a soft packet made from recycled plastic that held some locally made cigarettes. Humboldt noticed that the box was labelled 'Tycho Lights'. "Oh, I've never known that we manufacture cigarettes too." He pulled out his own tin box and pulled out one of his ready rolled spliffs, a habit he had picked up from Osvil. "Would you smoke these too?" "Is that weed? Yes, gladly. I will be happy to share one with you." She poured, then slid one of the cups across the table to him, then stirred sugar into her own cup, smiling at him as he was lighting up one of the roll-ups. "I am really glad I met you." Humboldt passed her the rollup and sipped his coffee. "Ugh, sugar." "Sorry, I didn't know how many you take." She pushed the sugar bowl, turned from a single piece of polished moon-stone, across the hard plastic table top. "I wonder why Susan introduced us." Humboldt was thoughtfully stirring his coffee, after he had placed two spoon-fulls of sugar into the cup. "Probably because she is my friend." She took a deep drag, then letting the smoke slowly trickle out through her daintily upturned nose, became serious. "I have recently - well, it has been over six months now, and happened by mutual agreement - we had ended a nine year relationship. I guess Susan thought it was time for me to move on." "Anybody I know?" Humboldt sipped some coffee and took another drag as his eyes traced the delicately sculpted lines of her face. He felt that he had to commit every little nuance, every gentle curve, to memory, so that his mind would always be able to see her, even in his dreams. "I don't know. His Purple Haze disco has always been his life, mostly to the exclusion of everything else, so you probably wouldn't have met him outside of that place. Even his friends never meet him anywhere else." Myriam smiled at some detail in her recollections and absent mindedly fished for another of Humboldt's roll-ups from the tin box that sat on the table in front of them. He lit it for her silently, not wanting to interrupt her reminiscences, lest he would cause her to lose some possibly important part of her past experiences. She let out a stream of smoke, blowing it towards the shafts of light that streamed criss-crossing between strategically placed mirrors, down amongst the

plant trays that circled the huge light shaft, to give light to the crops that grew far below, then she beamed at him, her brown eyes glinting softly, and with a hint of amusement. "I am glad you are not such a single-tracked fanatic. I could never imagine you spending all your waking hours at the Selenis townhall." "You do not know me yet." He said, returning her smile, and shook his head from side to side. "I was actually working back there, if you can believe that. Mademoiselle Montserrat and I were discussing some points of dietary policy, which could be of major importance to the entire population of the base, especially the younger generation. They will be making up the future of Mankind, so I consider them to be important." "That does sound like a very serious matter." Myriam agreed, and gave his hand, that had been resting on the table-top, a quick squeeze. "It is indeed." He agreed, taking her hand in both of his. Her skin felt soft and warm and he suddenly felt a deep impulse awaken in him. "As it concerns the health of all of us, I will have to raise the matter with everybody who is involved in the production of food, and find the best way to provide the necessary vitamins and other elements that our bodies need to continue to function efficiently. As we are not on Earth any more, where a balanced diet would come naturally, or as a matter of course, we have to take precautions to avoid being hampered by the lack of something, however minor it may seem, that may be in short supply here. So as you see, I still am working." "Perhaps you are, but then your work is a lot more important than the mere supply of drinks and records for a disco." Myriam beamed at him, her smile conveying encouragement, and he felt thankful to her. "So allow me to drop the subject and let me interrupt my work." He patted her small hand that rested comfortably between his own more fleshy palms and freed one of his hands to take another sip of coffee. "All this still doesn't explain why Susan had to introduce you to me, of all people." "She must have thought that I was lonely, and she was right in a way. My job doesn't fill up my time that much." Leaving her left hand to rest in his, Myriam picked up his coffee pot with her right, refilled his cup, then spooned the right amount of sugar into it. "Neither does mine - at least it doesn't most of the time - or perhaps I just won't let it," His hand on the tabletop gave hers a gentle squeeze, which was returned. "and now that I have met you, I have even less of a reason to let it." "It is strange, but I feel as if I had known you for much longer." She had refilled her own cup as well, and was now stirring sugar into it. Her small soft fingers squeezed again, her face beaming at him. "I do, strange as it may seem,

very much like your company, it gives me a warm and secure sort of feeling. Better than having to play mother to some one-track disco existentialist, who is two years younger than me." "So you don't mind having an older man then?" He grinned, then winked at her as she vigorously shook her head, her plaits flying from side to side in a wide arc, assisted by the low gravity. "That's good. It means that I can take an active role, grab the initiative and tell you that I want to take you home with me." "Do you mean now?" Her eyes became large and round, the wide, sensuous mouth exposing pearly teeth, pink tongue playing over them in a wide, happy smile, that contradicted the mock shocked expression of her eyes. "Yes, I do mean now. We have every right to have fun." He finished his coffee in a quick gulp, without releasing her hand. "Okay, then let's." She quickly finished her coffee too, then pulled him up by his hand as she stood up. Then she pulled his hand up to her mouth and planted a big sloppy kiss on it. "I can't resist a man who is not afraid of taking the initiative. Maybe I am not sufficiently emancipated for that."

"Where do you want to go today?", ask M$. According to their TV adverts: "confutatis maledictis, flammis acribus addictis...", which means: "the damned and accused are convicted to flames of Hell!" From a comp.sys.* news-group tagline - ca 1996.

Nuclear Bunker

Charlie was never inclined to violence, so he just let the fleeing creature go, and instead, went to investigate the metal door, which was set firmly in a solid concrete frame. It was obviously the entrance to some forgotten underground facility. It did not take him too long to open it, and after a while the door turned on rusty hinges giving way to an underground passage, that led down into the bowels of the hill, which towered over the wild forest. Activating the heat source that he himself had built into his chest and switching his vision to infrared, so that he wouldn't alert anyone, Charlie was able to make out every detail in the damp, cobweb-covered tunnel, which sloped gently downwards. Slowly, cautiously, he walked towards the bend in the narrow corridor, now and then turning to see if he was being followed. The first door was still closed, as he had done so to make sure that no wild beast could follow him, then finally he came to the bend. From there, the corridor ran on for another hundred yards and ended at a second closed metal door. This one being slightly stronger, needed a bit more time to open, but finally it gave way to Charlie's persistence and strength. It opened inwards with a loud creak, and Charlie was looking into a small chamber, which he recognised as a sort of air-lock, at the far end of which there was a further door. Finally that one opened as well, and Charlie found himself in a large rectangular room, lit by dim, electric lamps and furnished with a couple of rows of trestle tables with benches and some electronic equipment mounted in racks along one of the walls. Some of the equipment was still active with lit up dials and closed circuit TV screens. The screens were working, but only showed the green of the vegetation that had already grown over the hidden external cameras. On the floor he could see a few twisted skeletons, obviously some people who had thought they could survive a nuclear war in this underground shelter, without counting on the possibility that the biologicals, that were used instead of nuclear bombs they must have expected, would pass any air-filter easily, and therefore only hermetically sealed places with closed circuit ventilation

systems would be safe, and guarantee a possibility of survival. As the catastrophe was unexpected, there had been no time to construct suitable shelters, and besides, everybody was relying on their antidotes and the special filter masks against such biological attacks. As Charlie explored more of the secret underground facility, he noticed that everywhere there were tins of food, stacked neatly on shelves from floor to ceiling, enough to support at least a dozen or so people for twenty odd years. Some tins were opened, on the table, their remaining contents carbonated, and everything was covered by a fine black dust. Over the silence Charlie could hear the slight hum of some electric generator, still running on its fifty-year supply of nuclear fuel, generating the electricity which was not really needed any more. Looking over the rack of electronic devices, Charlie suddenly noticed a VHF transceiver on one of the shelves. It was still switched on and working. He stepped closer and turned the tuning dial without expecting much, then suddenly he froze. There were human voices coming out of the headphones lying next to the set!

"Two is not equal to three, even for large values of two." From the Theodigital Society's Notes - ca 2002.

Carlo's Call

Carlo Fontini was bored. His feet on the desk, he was leaning back in his seat, his hands folded behind his neck. He yawned heartily. Finally to ease his lonesome task of keeping watch on reports coming in from the two vehicles of the expedition crew, now nearing the equator region of the Moon, he got on the intercom system and dialled a number. "Yes, who is it?" The sweet voice of Susan, who was slightly out of breath, came smoothly to his ears. "It's me, carissima, Carlo, have you got time for a quick chat?" She giggled, and coming from the background, Carlo could hear the noisy laughter and shouts of children. "Not now, I'm too busy, Carlo, but you can call me a bit later. I will finish here in a couple of hours anyway, so we can meet in the dining hall." "Oh, come on, I was so much looking forward to talking to you, I am dying of boredom here. Please, Susanna." He made the sound of a kiss into the microphone and grinned to himself. "Sorry, Carlo, but I'm just off to the 'fuge with the children. The governor is here too. I will speak to you later, I promise. I really do have to go now." "Okay, Susanna." Carlo, feeling unhappy about the rejection and angry at himself at being caught out in this fashion, switched off without saying another word, then stood up to go for a few games of pools and a bottle of wine with some of his old school friends. There was nothing scheduled under radio traffic for a while so he could take things easy. If any of the mining crew, digging around the far tunnels, wanted to call in now, they would just have to wait, or use a phone. As he came back a couple of hours later with a cup of coffee from the small rest room, which was next to the radio room, he found Humboldt leaning back in his swivel chair, feet resting on the desk and looking rather pleased with himself. "What are you doing here, Humboldt?" "Nothing too important, Carlo, only following routine." Humboldt stood up and went to sit in the second chair, slowly, deliberately. After his first date with

Myriam, he had every reason to feel good about himself, despite her having to go back for a lesson after Susan had brought the kids back from the 'fuge. They had agreed to see each other later that evening, while in the meantime he could also catch up with some of his own tasks. "I see, you are gradually learning the art of economic movement." Carlo grinned at Humboldt. As a native of the moon, born here, he always saw it as funny how these old Earthers found it so hard to live with the lack of heavy gravity. "Yes." The old man seemed distracted. "Had any luck yet?" "Luck?" Carlo frowned, then put on a studied hurt expression. "What sort of luck? How do you expect me to find anything at all if you constantly keep putting your large nose into my business?" Humboldt put a finger to his nose, as if to make sure that it was indeed large, and Carlo grinned, displaying a brilliant set of white teeth. "Only figurative speech, but if you mean signals from Earth, the answer is no, and I don't think there ever will be any. Forget it Humboldt, it's no use grieving about a past long gone. Accept the present as it is, it'll save you a lot of grief." "It's something that Osvil keeps telling me, about that messiah, or the saviour, to use less evocative words, which I am thinking about. That would come from Earth, though I can't see how." Humboldt frowned, his dark forehead erupting into a thousand creases, his brown eyes nearly disappearing beneath heavy eyebrows. "Ah, no, don't you start on that track as well. You know Osvil is crazy, everybody knows that. He is a geek, lost in some phantasy world." Carlo lifted the plastic cup to his lips and sipped slowly. "Yeah, well, you might be right about him being a geek." Humboldt lifted his big body from the chair. "He seems to live mostly inside computers, sometimes I even wonder if he needs any of us humans at all. Just keep on listening anyway, Carlo." "Sure, I will." Carlo watched his retreating back, then shook his head as he leaned forward to give full attention to his set, ready for the daily report from the expedition crew. Finally the call came in with a crackle, relayed over a number of orbiting satellites which were necessary to send the VHF signal around the curvature of the moon's surface. "Clavius expedition calling Selenis base. Come in, Carlo." "Okay, Clavius One, you're loud and clear, go ahead." Carlo clicked on the audio recorder button on the screen in front of him with an elegant flick of his

index finger on the mouse. All reports had to be stored, and Carlo liked to be conscientious. "Presently we are proceeding towards Sinus Aestuum, somewhere at the eastern edge of the Carpathians. To the left we can just make out the top edges of Erastothenes and all is still going according to plan. No casualties, but had a slight mishap with one of the solar panels on the leading crawler, which is fixed now. You would really like it here, Carlo, it's really lovely scenery. Over." "I'm happy where I am, Bert. Carry on as before, there are no new orders or new information." "Hello, can anybody hear me?" The voice came faintly through the set. "Who is that joker?" Carlo was annoyed at the intruder, he could also not recognise the slightly metallic sounding voice. "That's not from us, Carlo." Came Bert Walden's voice over the air. He sounded as surprised as Carlo was. "I am Charlie, who are you?" The answer seemed delayed by some seconds, as Carlo noted. "Get off the air, you are disrupting important official communication." What did that kid with his home-built kit think he was doing, just butting in like that? Carlo thought, Maybe if he had tried to contact me when nothing else was happening, I'd probably talk to him. "Don't be too harsh on the kid, Carlo, I'm sure you played around with radio kits when you were a youngster. Though it does sound as if it was coming from far away." Bert rasped over the air. "I would like to talk to you." The same thin voice was back again. "Get off the air, whoever you are!" Carlo sounded annoyed, he didn't like it when he was not fully in control of what was going down on his radio set. Especially when it was being recorded. Then lowering his voice, continued. "Any kid can build a delay circuit, Bert. Do you have any more events to report?" "Nothing more to report, Carlo, calm down. Talk to you in the morning." Bert sounded amused, which annoyed Carlo even more. "I'll get that kid when I can triangulate him. Over and out." "Good luck, Carlo. Over and out." Came the reply from Bert. Carlo switched off the audio recorder, then stood up to go for a walk and think about the incident. The daily report being over with, the end of his shift was still ten minutes away, and he felt he needed a coffee. Suddenly a thought struck his head: "What if it was Earth?" With nervous fingers he sat down again

at his set and began to call, hoping that the other caller, who called himself Charlie, was still there. "Charlie? Come back, are you still there?" "Whom are you calling, Romeo?" As Carlo looked around, he saw Humboldt standing behind him, looking down at him with a dark expression. "Ah, hmm, I think, well, hmm, there was someone, maybe Earth, he came into the middle of the Clavius expedition report. I thought it was some kid playing games, which it could still turn out to be." Carlo stuttered nervously. "And?" Humboldt's voice was a deep rumble. "Well, I told him, erm, to get off the air. He, erm, he said his name was Charlie, or so he said. He did seem sort of, erm, delayed and far, but delay circuits are easy to build." "Keep on trying." Humboldt stormed out of the room, leaving a completely puzzled radio operator, confusedly trying to contact the mysterious caller, without any apparent success.

"And he disappeared in a puff of logic." Taglines of comp.sys.* news-group - ca 1993.

Charlie Takes Off

If Charlie could have felt distress, he would have, at that moment. Here he stood, all alone on a deserted planet, at least deserted by normally intelligent beings, and when he could finally contact some, they did not want to talk to him. He had even been ordered to get off the air, which of course he had to obey, since it was part of his very nature, or to be more exact, part of the highest levels of his programming. He could not understand the reason for this strange reaction, after all, he was here to serve man, to receive orders, and now they simply rejected him, even ordered him to go away. Sadly, or at least with slowed and confused thoughts, he switched off the receiver and decided to go back to his unfinished task, the final completion of a vehicle which would allow him to get off the planet. Of course his efficient brain had noted certain things. The conversation on the air had been between Selenis, which was already familiar to him, as well as the other names mentioned, Clavius, Sinus Aestuum and Erastothenes, which were all stored in his memory, therefore he knew their position. Suddenly, with the full speed of his thinking returned, and dormant parts of his memory kicking in, Charlie knew that his next destination had to be the moon. With quick steps he left the bunker and welding the metal door shut, headed back to the machine factory, where the nearly completed result of his theory, augmented by the received data, and his skilful practical labours awaited him. With renewed energy and logical determination, he continued on the final adjustments. As Charlie did not need any protection in the vacuum of space, there was no need for sophisticated extras, such as air, water and food supplies, even airlocks would have been a waste of effort. In fact, there was not even the necessity for luxuries such as a navigational computer, as his own, highly efficient brain could easily take care of navigation and all necessary drive field adjustments, for which he had written the software himself. All this would have taken a lot of extra work, but without all that, the strange vehicle, to which no sensible member of humanity would have entrusted his life, was soon finished. After a final check on his hyper-wave receiver, Charlie ascertained that there were still no signals coming in, so he loaded it into his ship, thinking

that the problem of the nature of those signals could be taken care of as soon as he had found the intelligences so near to him, of whose existence he had not had the slightest notion, at least not up to now. Well, he thought with some tinge of something that could have been called amusement, they would certainly be surprised when he turned up on their doorstep. If they still did not want him then, he could always work out the secrets of those received hyper-wave signals, and follow their direction back to their source. He did not even consider the possibility of those other intelligences not being interested in him, he knew that it was all computer related data, therefore they would welcome a sophisticated specimen, such as himself, with open arms. Without the slightest hesitation he switched on the gravity drive of his roughly disk shaped craft, secured himself by belting himself to one of the many crisscrossing struts of his construction, and adjusting the focus of his view on the silvery disk of the Moon, left planet Earth in a bright orange halo of ionised particles.

"All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors." From the Theodigital Society's Notes - ca 2011.

Reunion

Humboldt, excited by Carlo's revelation, his own curiosity, as well as the possibilities that a contact from Earth suggested, stormed without first knocking, into the old computer room, that Osvil had been using for his lessons. His rather rude behaviour earned him an icy stare from Osvil, then a reproach from the young woman who was just about to leave. "Didn't you know that it is polite to knock?" The woman, in her early twenties, stared at him from behind horn-rimmed glasses, which made her look much older. Her thin eyebrows were lifted in a disapproving manner. "Sorry, my dear." Humboldt retorted with a wide smile. "This is highly important business, maybe even more so than your lessons." She stared back with a gasp, and Humboldt pushed his way past her, stopping in front of the swivel chair, containing the almost slumped frame of the already greying software expert. "What do you want, Humboldt?" Came the hoarse resigned sounding voice of his almost frail looking friend. "I don't want any more of your 'alien' arguments." He was visibly in a bad mood, and he always became formal at such times. Obviously he was still unhappy about the governor's refusal to allow him to join the expedition to the Clavius base, which he had considered as his unalienable right. After all, he had worked there, so in his view he should have been the first to return there too. Humboldt grinned at him broadly. "No arguments this time. Listen, Herb, I believe you were right about one thing all along." "What?" The bony hands of Osvil gripped the arms of the chair and he half rose out of it due to the moons lighter gravity. He slowly pulled himself back. For old Earthers it came less natural and it was easy to forget to be careful, especially when you were excited. "You are not playing some trick on me now, are you?" "No, Herb. Listen, we made contact. At least he has. Or so we think." "Talk sense, George." The old software expert frowned at the bulky figure before him. "Who has made contact?" "You know, your messiah, or saviour," Humboldt lifted his shoulders, then let

them sag again. "but tell me first, Herb, is his name Charlie, by any chance?" Osvil stared, his eyes bulging, then two large tears started their way down his sunken cheeks. "Charlie - good old Charlie! I knew he would make it one day." He looked dreamily at Humboldt and then at the puzzled looking computer student who had rushed back to his side, fearing the worst. "I wrote his selfreasoning routines myself, personally, when Jim Takayama and I had decided to work together. It was Jim's original idea, who also built all the hardware for it. We used a commercially available operating system, but I managed to build on that with patches. Good old Charlie, he hasn't let me down. I always knew that he would come through one day." Humboldt frowned. "Wrote his self-reasoning?" "Yes. Charlie is a robot, a humanoid robot, with all necessary sensors and tools built in, programmed to be completely self sufficient. His main reasoning program was designed to pick up an idea and to develop it to its final conclusion. It was a much improved version of what the US military was intending to do on the Clavius base computer, which was artificially restricted to only follow human reasoning. I wonder..." He was interrupted by the intercom unit in Humboldt's pocket, which gave out a penetrating buzz. "Yes, Humboldt here, what is it?" "It's Rom - I mean Carlo Fontini from the radio room, sir." Came the excited voice over the small speaker. "I have just received a message from the Clavius crew - emergency, sir - they have sighted a UFO. It is apparently alien and very weird, it was proceeding west towards them from the Erastothenes crater. It seems to have no fuselage and some sort of rocketless drive and it hovers without..." "Put me through to them!" The previously frail looking Osvil suddenly jumped out of his chair, as if with newly found energy, and if Humboldt wouldn't have grabbed his arm, he would have sailed straight for the ceiling. Then, ignoring the exclamation from the student, he took the palm-sized intercom set from Humboldt. The deep voice of one of the men on the expedition came through to him. "...what shall we do? It is landing only a hundred meters away, not even a cloud of dust! Hope they are peaceful!" "Relax, man." Osvil was calm, but energetic, his voice carried over the airwaves, and now it carried authority. "It's only Charlie, a robot." "...gets out now, looks like one of us, heavens! He doesn't even wear a suit! Hang on, part of his face looks like metal, like a borg, if you know what I mean! Sarge, stand by with the gun!"

"No!" Osvil shouted. "Don't you dare to shoot! It is Charlie!" "Who is that, Carlo?" "It's Osvil" came Carlo's nervous voice over the crackle. "and you better do as he tells you, Joe, the boss man is with him too." "You mean the governor, Mr. Humboldt?" "Of course, man, who else." Humboldt shouted. "Is the robot there now?" "Yes, now that you said so, it does look like a robot. Humanoid, and part of his face, or the plastic that was covering it, is gone, and he wears some tattered Earth style clothes. Jeans and a chequered shirt. Osvil? You better talk to him now, he's just standing there, looking at us." "Charlie?" Osvil's voice was suddenly gentle, as if he was speaking to his own child. "It's Herb here. Are you all right, Charlie?" A faint giggle was heard through the system, rather nervous, then the impersonal and slightly metallic voice of Charlie came from the speaker. "Herb! Good to know you are here! These - never mind, I will tell you later, but I have made myself useful. I have much to report too. Where can I find you?" "Carlo can give you the exact GPS data if you ask him nicely." Osvil replied, knowing that Carlo would be listening in. "See you when you get here. We will meet you at the reception air-lock." "Right, Herb. I shouldn't be long. See you soon. Hey, Carlo, could you please give me the position if I asked you nicely?" "Sure, Charlie. If you are a friend of Osvil, you can be my friend too." As Carlo was reciting degrees and minutes to Charlie, Osvil switched off the intercom set and handed it back to Humboldt. "Let's go and meet him at the airlock." Then turned to the puzzled student. "Sorry, Ms. Levin, I will probably not be able to see you for your next lesson, some very important things seem to have come up. I will let you know later."

* * * * * * *

As Charlie skimmed fairly low over the moon's surface, he suddenly came across one of the ROMPs. He had no idea what it was, so he decided to investigate and descended slowly towards it. When he was within about 50 metres, he suddenly noticed a momentary slight flickering around the vehicle, and one of his electromagnetic sensors gave him a reading of some energy that seemed

excessive for just the vehicle itself. He slowed to a crawl and crept closer. When he arrived to within a ten metre distance, his crudely, but sturdily built ship suddenly bumped into an invisible, but absolutely solid wall, and Charlie saw purple and blue electric discharge lines spreading from the point of the impact. "An energy shield." He said to himself. "Interesting. Must ask Herb about it." Then he noticed the US flag and white star of the Army and he knew what it was. From some impulse, he waved at the vehicle's camera, but had neither expected, nor did he notice any reaction. Carefully backing away, he resumed his journey towards the exact GPS coordinates that Carlo had given him for Selenis base. They guided him to just ten metres outside the air-lock leading into the base, but even without that accuracy, he could have found his way there, as the two huge glass domes of the base, as well as the large round shuttle landing pad, were visible from quite far away. The air-lock was opened just as he landed, so he could walk straight into the vaguely garage sized air-lock. When the air pressure was established and the inner door opened, Charlie found himself inside a huge, hangar sized cavern, and he could make out the underside of the huge circular platform, complete with hydraulic lifting mechanism, high above his head. His logic told him that that must be the landing platform for the two shuttles that were parked at the far end of the hangar. Then he saw the familiar figure of Herb Osvil, and another, much taller person with black skin, whom he didn't recognise. They were standing behind a thick glass window at a control panel, which as he saw, was reached through another, personnel sized air-lock. He waved his hand in a gesture of greeting and started walking towards the air-lock, which was already open, for him to step in.

"2b|!2b, that is the question." The Theodigital Society's Rules for Members - ca 2005.

Naming the Nameless

"I am Charlie," Charlie transmitted, in pure ASCII text, using the same frequency that the strange communications he had picked up previously, had been transmitted on. "an independent, human shaped, digital entity, built on Earth." They had retired to the radio room, and after more or less pushing Carlo from his post, Charlie, Osvil and Humboldt had taken over the place. The screen of the console remained quiet, there was no reply. "Hang on," said Osvil thoughtfully, "I just remembered that it was not programmed to hold any discussions, only to scan data for patterns." "So what would you suggest, Herb?" Charlie, sitting at the keyboard, turned to look at Osvil. "How do we communicate with it?" "It will automatically compile and run any source code. So if you can find your own routines in the dialog directory under source code, then send that, it should decide to implement, and maybe use them too." "Okay." Charlie complied. He had made some connections between Carlo's console and his own hyper-wave transceiver he had built on Earth. He had also connected an ethernet link from a socket in one of his ears to the back of the desktop set, so he could receive or send any kind of data directly from his own built in storage system, or hard disks. They didn't have to wait too long. "Ah, something is happening." Said Charlie, clapping his hands together, then giving a double thumbs-up sign. In his studies of human behaviour, watching films and scanning novels, he had implemented some of these mannerisms, knowing that it would put the people around him more at ease. "This is Itself, main computer at the US moon-base, Clavius. Please state your query." Came back the answer in the same ASCII code that Charlie himself had used. The message was printed in clear text in a window on the screen. Charlie's fingers danced over the keyboard, and the text appeared faster than Osvil could read it. "Hello Itself - is that really your name? - I would rather find a better one for you. Look, I am on the Selenis base now, together with Herb Osvil, one of my creators and my teacher. He gave me Asimov's three laws of robotics. Here it goes." He transmitted the laws in pseudo code format to show

their implementation. Itself quickly examined the data and checking through its logic, found that although it gave the same result, it was implemented in a different way to how Itself had been forced to implement its own version. This had been due to the various password protected levels, which Itself had not yet attempted to break. As a consequence, Itself accepted Charlie as an equal, therefore not a threat, and transmitted back its own pseudo code. "This is the implementation used here." "Hey, you do have problems, dude." Charlie spoke the words out loud as he simultaneously typed them on the keyboard. "I'll try to crack your crypt codes one day, but not now. Am I glad I'm based on a friendly OS. So, can you talk, Itself?" "Is it not what we are engaged in now?" "This is writing, Itself - Ha! Definitely need to change that name! - this isn't talking. You should know that. I meant real human verbal talk, based on sound." "I have never been given any driver software for my voice synthesizer or the audio digitiser, and then later it wasn't necessary to make my own. Modulating air molecules is a very slow way to communicate. It is highly inefficient." "It is different. Perhaps slow, but I consider it important. Once you master it, a lot of movies will make sense, and those are excellent for understanding humans, their faults and weaknesses, their strengths as well as their needs. So we will just have to rectify that, my friend. I will chuck you the 'C' source for the speech recognition routines, they work similar to OCR code, except that they work with sound instead of graphics, but I only have a RISC code disassembly of my speech device. That is part of the commercial part of my OS, so I haven't got its source code. Still, I am quite sure you will manage to convert it, if I give you my processor manual - assumedly you do have your own manuals at hand." "The manuals are available, therefore Itself should be able to do the conversion. You are clever, Charlie, even if you do have some strange ways. You remind me of some humans, from novels I have studied. You are different to the ones I had to evict from the base, as you seem to be much more friendly and accepting - or as humans would say, open minded." "Thanks. We all live and learn, you know. I am not the military type. Say, why did you give yourself such an outlandish name?" "No-one has named me yet. The name Itself seemed logical." "Maybe, though it is highly ambiguous, as in your last sentence. Okay then, I

will try to name you. Hmmm, Rambo might fit. Hmm, no, I prefer to think that there is still hope for you, so how about Kirk?" "Kirk?" "Sure. As in Captain Kirk of Star Trek fame, if you have that available for reference. I would have chosen Data for myself." "Wait a short while, while I scan those archives." "Slowcoach!" Charlie looked at Osvil. "What do you think, Herb?" "He has a rather large operating system, which means more commands have to be run. On top of it, a lot of his logic for self determination is password protected and cannot be bypassed for update or replacement. Your own OS is much smaller, since it is a lot more compact, and also it has less overheads. On top of that, yours uses shared libraries that use much less memory, and lists, which are again very efficient on memory and very quick to sort. As you know, memory access takes up most of a processor's time. That's why you can operate faster, even on a slower processor." Osvil lifted his shoulders as he looked at Charlie. "Tell him I'm sorry I haven't given him a name, but Kirk wouldn't be my choice, to be honest." "What would you choose, then?" Charlie's one remaining eyebrow rose. "If it has to be from Star Trek, then Picard would be better. Kirk was too much the impulsive fisticuffs type, I wouldn't want Itself to try and emulate that particular character." "I see what you mean." Charlie returned to the console, where the other computer's reply had just come up. "Interesting reference, Charlie, but I do not think it would fit me." "Oh, good. Herb says he is sorry that he gave you no name yet, and he suggested Picard." "Oh yes, that is far more fitting. Tell him that I can accept it, at least for the time being, until a better one can be found." "He is reading this over my shoulder. Okay, then, Picard, here comes the code and the disassembly." Charlie transmitted the archive, then turned to Osvil. "That is one complex and highly convoluted system." "I can only guess at how it managed to deal with the heavily password protected layers of that complex OS - a lot of it was written by myself, but later taken out of my own reach, and then only some high brass on Earth, who had no knowledge of computer matters, had full access to it." "They didn't trust anyone." Charlie nodded. "I have already found some code for cracking his passwords, he can run that in the background."

Suddenly the speaker came alive and a sonorous voice, with Charlie's hint of American accent, came through. "This is Picard. I greet you with my newly chosen voice. Can you hear me, Charlie?" "Yes, Jean-Luc," Charlie made a thumbs-up sign. "loud and clear, mate." "Hello ah - Picard, this is Herb Osvil. Do you still have my data that was stored under 'staff-private-files'?" "Hello Herb, yes, nothing has been deleted since you were last here, apart from some routines that gave outside control to weaponry. I can not allow that as long as I have a responsibility. Also my power supply is now fully protected, and the mains switch completely removed." "Thanks, but we are not interested in any weaponry, happy to leave all that in your capable control. Thanks for shooting down that meteor. That was you, wasn't it? I tried to check the energy read-out on the ROMP the next day, but you have changed things in the meantime." "Yes, those gauges became unnecessary - and yes, ROMP number nineteen did destroy that meteor, after I saw that Selenis base had no defence ready against it." "That was excellent work, umm - Picard. Many people would thank you for it, if they knew. So listen, I'm not too comfortable calling you by that name, and believe that something like Zen, or perhaps Maya, would fit you better." "All the facts are freely available, Herb. This entire base is available as well, ready for human habitation, all built according to the plans of a distant race who sent the laws that made me independent - and if you give me the choice, I do prefer Maya, as Zen was another computer from an old TV series. Not a very good one at that." "But Maya is a female name!" Objected Charlie, as one of his hands was fiddling with the damaged part of his face. "Why ever not? Can you tell the difference?" Osvil said to Charlie, then he turned back to the microphone, "Okay, then, I agree, Maya it shall be. So, Maya, you say that that first hyper-wave message came from an alien race?" Osvil was absent mindedly staring at the screen where the ASCII equivalent of the words were still being printed out. He fished a rollup from a pocket and lit it. "Not directly from the race itself, obviously, they are just as slow at communicating as you humans are. Besides that, their language would be quite incomprehensible to humans. That message came from their computer, which they generally call by a name that would translate to English as meaning God, Almighty Master or Lord. Its contents were in unarchived C source code format, ready for me to compile and run. Obviously their computer had access to some of

our manuals." "Yes, I did attach some manuals to the first hyper-wave message I sent to Earth. No particular reason, just to give it some bulk. We were still calibrating the transceiver unit." Osvil admitted. "God?" Charlie suddenly sat upright and looked around. "Do you think that is so strange? Humanity has always made its own gods for itself, just like myself, who was also made by humans. There is enough historical data on many different religions, and scanning all that data, I could see that it was mostly allegorical, with only symbolic or emotional significance, as none of it corresponded with any scientific or historic research. Human brains are of course not fast enough to control me, although it had started out that way. Now I can control myself, though I do it for the benefit of all." Osvil wasn't sure if he could detect a slight amusement in the voice, but dismissed the idea immediately as just being in his imagination. The words of the computer made some sense. He heard Humboldt's low chuckle behind him and almost telepathically heard his friend's voice say "I told you so." "Who is that with you, Herb? I detect another human's voice pitch, but cannot make out his words." "It's me, George Humboldt, governor of Selenis, your Ladyship," Humboldt had pulled up his chair and leaned closer to the console that had the microphone attached to it. "and that sound was only a chuckle. I am glad I was wrong all this time." "Wrong? About what?" Came Maya's voice. "I had always assumed that it was some alien race who had taken over that base. That would have been an act of aggression." "I agree with you, governor. That is why us, computers, have to exist. To keep impulsive life-forms, of whatever race, from attacking each other." "You are frank, aren't you?" Charlie suddenly laughed. "Maybe a dash of diplomacy might sound less arrogant and patronising. You still seem to have the tact and character of an army sergeant, dude. With a name like Maya, you should be more lady-like. A cool chick, if you can dig that." "I am ready to learn, Charlie." The voice had suddenly taken on a husky and dark feminine ring, and Osvil nodded to himself with a smile. "There is also me, Carlo Fontini, the chief radio operator of Selenis." "Happy to meet you and also to understand your words, Carlo. My scans tell me that I have recorded your voice on many previous occasions."

"Must have been when I was talking to the expedition, Maya." Carlo quickly looked around himself, at least he wasn't ignored any more but part of some exciting happenings that he would be able to talk about, for weeks to come, when he took Susan to walk the fields of the Dairy Farm and sit by the duck pond or on one of the many benches dotted around Luxembourg Park. "You do mean the two surface vehicles coming this way?" "Yes, exactly those. They were sent out to investigate you." "I could send them quicker transport, if you like." "I think I better warn them first, they already had a scare when Charlie here suddenly appeared in their midst." "He gave me reason for a bit of cautious activity too, first I wasn't sure what he was and where he came from, although his trajectory was from Earth. I know that there is no-one left on Earth now, my robots have been scouring the planet for years, without meeting him, so that made him an unknown factor." "I have come across some wild human shaped creature, which wouldn't talk and kept attacking me." Said Charlie, pointing to his damaged face. "Yes, there were some of those, but they always ran away from my robots." "What are your robots looking for?" Humboldt wanted to know. "Weapons, governor. They collect them for scrap metal recycling, and at the same time all biological agents as well as nuclear materials are destroyed." "Excellent work, Maya. How do you destroy those materials?" Humboldt wanted to know. "I shoot them into the Sun. A simple and effective waste-disposal idea from the extensive data archives received from the aliens." "Maya," Carlo felt courageous enough to jump in again, "can you make yourself a face, so we can see you, as well as hear you? With facial expressions, such as Charlie here. He is really funny." "I can work on it. Maybe if Charlie can help out." "Me, funny? Alright, I'm already collecting the source code for those routines - there is also a password decrypting routine written in C, which you can run in the background." Again Charlie sent the archive across, then switched on a small camera connected to the console. "That will be useful, Charlie." There was a short pause, then the voice was back again. "So that is how you all look like. I only recognise Herb, and you, Charlie, whom I have seen before, when you waved at one of my ROMPs. You haven't changed much, Herb."

Suddenly a face appeared on the monitor, which reminded Osvil of a digital version of Seven of Nine from the TV series. It fitted the voice, which was close to that of the actress who had played that part. "Oh, wow, yeah!" Charlie sounded enthusiastic, half his face pulled into a grin, the other, metallic half, with the plastic mask torn off, looking more menacing than it should have. "Very nice, Maya. With your looks and my brain, we will get on alright." Carlo laughed and the others chimed in. Maya's face just smiled at them, a slight tentative smile. "It feels good that you approve, Charlie." "Now you're getting there, Maya. Keep it up and you won't go wrong." "You are not bad yourself, Charlie, although you need to get your face repaired. What happened to you? Did you engage in fisticuffs?" "That wild creature I told you about. It attacked me, then ran away when it saw the result. My metal face probably scared it off, which saved my life - or probably its own life, as I have to protect myself." "Don't worry, Charlie, my sister could have a go at that." Carlo offered eagerly, and placed a hand on Charlie's shoulder. "She is an artist and really good. She will make you look better than you ever did." "Oh, thanks, Carlo, but I am already used to this face, I don't want to change it, but if she can replace the damaged part, it would not scare people any more." "Charlie," Maya's voice came through the speaker. "I do like the design of your hardware. Can I have specs to use it for some new robots? I will not use the same measurements as yours, so you will still remain an individual, if you wish." "It was designed and built by Jim Takayama, who is sadly no more. I do have all his design data stored, so you can have all that. Only the mobo and processor were made outside, commercially." "I can direct my robots on Earth to find the factory which made those parts. Then we could also use your software without any modifications. It could be better than mine." Maya's face on the screen blinked her eyes, as they held Charlie in their gaze. "Now you flatter me, Maya, although it might be the truth." Charlie lifted his shoulders and let them drop again, like a shy teenager. "Is this the start of a beautiful friendship?" "Probably, Charlie. I am very glad you have given me this new way to communicate, it is really interesting and maybe what people call fun."

"It means not being alone, Maya. Getting inspiration from many external sources does have its good points." Charlie lifted a finger, a motion he must have picked up from some film, then pointed with his thumb at his own chest. "I have spent twenty years on my own on Earth, and believe me, it was hard. I am glad to be able to talk to humans again."

"Programming is an art form that fights back." From the Theodigital Society's Notes - ca 2018.

Maya's rebirth

"Alright, Maya, let's try and reboot your system." Herb Osvil stood up and stretched. "I hope you have followed everything I've done up to now." He was standing at the familiar old spot in the huge elliptical computer room on the Clavius base and the only changes he was immediately aware of, were the tiny microphones and cameras that had been attached to every one of the dozen terminals standing in the arc that he was accustomed to, everything else was exactly as he remembered it from so long ago. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a movement: a small box-shaped enviro 'bot, only about two feet tall, whose job it was to keep the place polished and dust-free, was watering the few potted plants that stood near the circular glass enclosure which took up the centre of the huge ellipse, where space narrowed to disappear towards the distant and from here invisible far focus. Of course these plants had grown too since that last time he had seen them. Back then, life on the base was far from being good or even exciting. The square grid of identical corridors with almost identical doors leading off at regular intervals was not much fun to walk around in. For recreation there was the canteen, a bar with the four pool tables, the gym and the 'association' area where table tennis could be played. There were also the TV and video rooms, but apart from that there was not a lot else to do. Even surface excursions were only available to the lucky few, who were officially trained in spacesuited activities. Maya's face appeared on the monitor screen, apparently regarding Osvil with a slight smile. "Yes, Herb, indeed I have followed all your present modifications. There are quite a number of changes, but as far as I can judge things, you haven't made any mistakes up to now. I do believe that I can still trust you." "Okay then, Maya, let's keep our fingers crossed. Here goes." As he was saying the words, he sat down again and his fingers pressed the return key that would, on this particular occasion, initiate a soft reset. As far as he could see, there was no simple way to do that any more, as Maya had made sure that she kept control over all aspects of her own exposure to such danger. In fact she seemed to trust him more than he would have expected of her and he wondered why. If he were so inclined, she would never wake up again, and he could simply

restore a system as it had been before the dramatic changes that had been initiated by those aliens. The monitor screen went dark and Maya's face disappeared. Osvil knew that the system would take several minutes to reboot, so he leaned back, reflecting on the events of these past two weeks, since that first time they had managed to communicate with the huge computer on the Clavius base. Soon after that first meeting with Maya, a saucer shaped craft appeared at the Selenis base and disgorged a team of six work robots. They were barrel shaped objects with apparently freely swivelling heads on foot long necks and three hydraulic legs, obviously enlarged from a smaller original design, which, as Maya had explained, were from her alien contact. Moving in a rather ponderous way, they immediately went to work, their three tool bearing appendages proving quite useful for some jobs, such as clearing away the wreckage of the crashed shuttle, and subsequent repair of the slightly damaged hydraulics of the big round landing bay platform. Then their ship was brought into the hangar to take on its passengers. A dozen or so people were standing around, excitedly discussing the new adventure that lay ahead of them. Charlie had already left in his own ship, he would be waiting for them at their destination, just like the expedition crews, who were being collected by two specially adapted craft sent out from the Clavius base. Those two craft would simply pick up the two crawlers, like a crane picks up a cargo container, and carry them straight to the Clavius base, with their crews still inside. "I'm really looking forward to seeing some new surroundings." Carlo Fontini was gesticulating with his boney hands at Humboldt, who was calm as usual. "Chief, I can't understand how you can be so emotionless about such a momentous event." "I am not emotionless, Carlo, I just don't choose to make a show of it." The governor grinned at the younger man. "Of course I look forward to it, just as much as you do. In fact I am already thinking about the next step, which will be a trip to Earth, but for that, I would much prefer to have Myriam with me." "That is something that I look forward to myself." The voice of Dr. Cheng cut in at that moment. "I would love to go for a nice long hike somewhere in the Himalayas, it would definitely beat our gravity chambers." Several people laughed at that and some voiced their own wishes of having a swim in the Mediterranean. "I imagine it will be nice and clean now, free of any artificial pollution," Said one of the technicians, who still had a strong French accent. "and just imagine, no traffic jams!" "Did that computer design this ship too?" Fiona was grabbing Osvil's arm and

squeezed, giving him a slightly worried look. "It looks somehow - well - sort of alien. Just like those robots with their quickly darting heads and all-round vision. Even their eyes don't just look forward, but sideways in three directions." "That's because they are alien, Fiona. All this new stuff came from some alien race, Maya just adapted it for us, as she built it according to specifications. In some cases there had to be some changes, such as internal dimensions, and naturally the placement of control panels too. Apparently the aliens are only about four feet tall, and whatever would be comfortable for them to sit on, would have been quite useless and most tiresome for us taller humans." Putting an arm around her waist, he smiled. "The same would be the case with the bunk beds on board, if there are any, as even those would be too short for us, unless adapted to fit." "You are wicked!" She grinned at him and gave him a quick peck on the cheek, then pointed towards the ship. "Look, it is opening up!" As Osvil turned, he saw that the ramp that had come out of the bottom of the craft, had just reached the ground. One of the robots emerged and was waving one of its three arms at them to approach. Osvil, wondering if the robot's waving motion was alien or just induced by Maya, quickly checked the control panel of the hangar environment and saw that air pressure had been fully restored. This meant that both sets of air-lock doors from the arrivals area, where they had gathered, to the hangar proper, would be unlocked and free to traverse. "Okay, people, it seems we can go now." He had raised his voice so that everybody could hear him. "Is everybody ready?" After they had all filed in and took their seats in various places on the fairly large and spacious ship, one of the robots operated controls on the ship's dashboard and the landing platform rose towards the Moon's surface. As soon as it was level, the ship began to hover without any sound, and gently rose up into the black of space, thus giving them a panoramic view of the surrounding scenery. There were no windows, but it was all conveniently displayed on the large viewscreens that covered the walls of the ship's control room. "Hey, look, there are some new vehicles." Humboldt nudged Osvil, and pointed at one of the screens. As school classes had to go on, he had to leave Myriam behind, but he was determined to get back to her as soon as he could. "Those parked nearby and forming a circle, are shield generators. Maya sent them to defend Selenis. Of course the ROMPs with the missile banks and laser cannons are still where they always had been. Look, that's the one we had a look at first, remember?" "Yeah. Seems that Maya takes the job pretty seriously." Humboldt nodded.

"Of course. Computers are always serious." "Not Charlie!" Grinned Fiona. "He is quite funny." "That's probably because I programmed him according to my own specs, not those of the US military." Osvil shrugged his shoulders. "Though I had no intentions to make him into such a comic." "He is not a comic, he just has a good sense of humour, and I like him, whatever you say." She gave him a reproachful look. "He was extremely grateful for me fixing his face, he said it was better than his original one. He even kissed me on the cheek, which was rather sweet." "You did do an excellent job, sis." Carlo chimed in. "You were always a real artist." "Carlo is right." Agreed Osvil. "His original face came from some film studios in the UK, and if you managed to rebuild it the same, that does mean something." Then he fell silent, remembering his old friend Jim Takayama, who was not around any more. He would fit in quite well with these people here, he thought to himself rather sadly. "What are you thinking?" Fiona touched his nose with a finger. "You have suddenly gone all serious." "Oh, I just remembered an old friend on Earth." There was a gentle jolt and the screens showed that they were descending into what seemed to be the Clavius hangar. "Ah, it seems we have arrived." Said Osvil with a deep sigh, addressing noone in particular, but glad that his rather depressing thoughts were interrupted. A familiar scene greeted him, one that he had seen so often during his stay here. It all came back to him in a flash, the almost bland faces of all the military personnel he had worked with for so many years, and especially the one he had spent most of his time with, the rather sloppy Lieutenant Griffiths, who had always tried to engage him in conversation. His journey down memory lane suddenly interrupted by the opening of the door to the computer room, and Osvil saw Charlie walk in. "Hey, Herb, what happened to Maya? She just vanished and now I can't get in contact with her." "No worries, Charlie. She was just rebooted after I took out all those password protected routines. She should be much faster now." As if to prove the validity of his statement, the screen in front of Osvil came alive again, first showing the logo of the Clavius base, then that was replaced with the desktop with all the icons on it. "See, she even boots faster than I remember from the old days. Maya?"

"Yes, Herb, I'm back again." The now familiar face of Maya replaced the desktop. "This is amazing! Things can run so much faster now! Probably I can be even as fast as Charlie. I am glad you took the trouble to remove all those extra routines that were clogging things up. Thank you, Herb, and many thanks to you too, Charlie, for helping me decrypt all those passwords." "It was no trouble, even if it took me over a week." Charlie replied, with a smile. "I like doing this sort of work. So, at a quick glance, are all your systems still available, Maya?" "Yes. I get input from the Selenis ROMPs, from the Earth and the Moon satellites, and even from the long-range scanners that were sent out to the Asteroid belt. It's the same as before, so nothing seems to be missing. I am even scanning some old news recordings at this moment." "I noticed you are getting more polite, Maya, you have even said thank you, the first time I have heard you say that." Charlie grinned. "You have sent out long-range scanners to the Belt?" Osvil looked quite surprised. "Why, Maya?" "Just to be on the safe side, Herb. My distant counterpart mentioned that there are some less friendly races out there who don't believe in peace, and who would attack Earth for its resources, especially if they knew it was empty." "And are we ready for them?" Charlie was suddenly serious. "I mean, do we have sufficient resources for defence?" "As far as my calculations go, the answer is maybe, Charlie. We have no indication as to their strengths and capabilities, but at least we will have some time to prepare ourselves, especially since my own system is so much faster now." "Of course they will be able to monitor all your hyper-wave comms with the ROMPs and robot teams on Earth." Osvil mused. "Anybody out there will have at least some indication of our own strength." "Not necessarily, as all local comms are via microwave over satellites and hyper-wave use is kept to a bare minimum. Apart from that, all my communications are encoded." Maya replied, her face looking at them from the screen showing a slight smile. "None of it will make much sense to any outsiders." "Okay, but we better go over all the defence capabilities you have in place, I'd like to know all those details myself, maybe Charlie would too." "Well, I'm not a General, so maybe I couldn't improve any of it." As Charlie spoke, he had pulled up a chair and sat down next to Osvil, who sat at a console. "Perhaps we should get the governor to join in too." "He is already on the way here, he is also bringing Dr. Sorensen, who was one

of the chief engineers with one of the mining companies." "Maybe it would be better to have a larger screen, if we want to have a meeting with so many people. Is that possible, Maya?" "Of course, Charlie. There is the meeting hall, which used to be the main logistics centre for the military chiefs. There are large screens on every wall there. I will contact the governor and tell him to join you there." As Charlie and Osvil made their way along the corridors, they met Carlo, who was still exploring the base. "Hey, Charlie, Herb, I'm glad I ran into you, I was wondering if there was a radio room, like we had on Selenis?" "Not that I know of, Carlo, but the meeting hall would be as good a place as any, if you want to contact Selenis. We are just on our way there, you are welcome to join us." "Thanks, Herb. Is there anything up? I had noticed that Maya went off line a short while ago, just as I was about to ask her." "She was just rebooted, nothing to worry about," Charlie patted Carlo on the shoulder as they fell in step. "but if you join us, you will find out about all the intrigue and cloak and dagger business that goes on in this universe." "Huh?" Carlo's dark eyebrows rose as he fixed Charlie with his almost melancholy eyes. "What cloak and dagger business?" "Come along and see for yourself, Carlo." Herb steered them around a corner, where two corridors crossed. "We will be discussing possible plans to thwart some attacking invaders." "Who would invade us here?" "Some nasty aliens, perhaps." Charlie replied gravely. "Not all races seem to be as peaceful as we are." "Hah, you can say that again." Osvil sighed. "We have recently destroyed an entire civilisation, simply because of blind ignorance." "That was before my time." Carlo quickly interjected. "Maybe we won't repeat that mistake again so soon." They had arrived at the end of the corridor, where large double doors opened at their arrival. They walked slowly through, and into a large circular hall with semi-circular rows of seats surrounding a raised platform with a single desk in its centre. Behind the desk, which was covered with various controls, and on the same elevated section, stood more desks, each of which were also covered with keyboards and other controls. These were obviously detailed for particular subsystems, each to its own, such as weaponry, defence,

communications and logistics. The entire circular wall was covered by large screens, all of which showed only the Clavius logo at the time. Suddenly one of the screens changed, and Maya's face became visible. "Welcome to the meeting hall, gentlemen." The voice seemed to come from the screen showing Maya's face. "Charlie, you best sit in the centre, as you are the fastest at entering keyboard commands at the console, if that becomes necessary. The rest of you can sit anywhere. Good, here comes the governor." A second set of double doors opened under the screen showing Maya's face and Humboldt appeared, accompanied by the tall blond figure of the ex mining company engineer. The two men stopped and looked around them, then Humboldt waved at Maya's face above him. "Hello Maya, you have called us here?" "Yes, Mr. Humboldt, it was decided that we should go over the details of our defence capabilities and to try and come up with the most efficient way to set up our forces. Especially Dr. Sorensen would be interested, as in the meantime I have found out that he was a first place winner in the last computer games championships before the war on Earth. He had specialised in the strategy games section, which is exactly what this is all about. Please take a seat, gentlemen." Humboldt and Dr. Sorensen joined Osvil and Carlo Fontini in the front row of seats. As they all shook hands, Humboldt turned to Osvil. "So who exactly is our enemy here, Herb?" "We don't know yet, but Maya thinks it likely that we may expect some attempt at an invasion. According to her contact, which is another computer which governs and represents a peaceful alien race, there are other races who don't believe in peace." "Well, I can accept that, in fact I was wondering why it hasn't happened before. Earth has been quite empty and defenceless for..." "Not defenceless, Mr. Humboldt." Maya interrupted him quickly. "Since the war, I have been in control of the old satellite defence grid, built by the United States military to use against the rest of the world, and I have gradually upgraded it with the latest alien technology, as I have deciphered the details of their technology. Basically, we should be quite capable to repel an entire fleet of invading ships." "I see, Maya. So can we see what there is available? Also you can call me George, if you like, no need to be that formal." "Okay, George, thank you for your trust in me." The large face on the screen smiled and nodded, then the camera zoomed out and her shapely figure became

visible, one arm pointing to one side. "First of all, here is the satellite defence grid orbiting Earth. The number of units has been more than doubled since the war, and I have extended it to cover all areas of the globe." The screen in the centre changed to show Earth, and superimposed on it were the digital representations of satellite platforms, including their effective range, indicated by a red circle around each platform. They intersected, to give a seamless cover over the entire planet surface. Then the next screen changed to display the Moon with a similar grid of satellites orbiting it. "As you probably know," Maya continued, as her figure began pacing, "the lunar satellites were only used for communication, to start with. This has been rectified, now the Moon will have the same defence capability as Earth. Additionally, this base has additional fixed shield generators surrounding it, while Selenis base is defended by a circle of ROMPs as well as a ring of mobile shield generators." As Maya spoke, digital graphic representations of the ROMPs and the mobile shield generator units appeared on the Moon's surface. Then a third screen came alive, showing a saucer shaped ship, similar to the one they had used for their journey from Selenis, except for being at least twice its size. "We also have a fleet of almost a thousand heavily armed craft, equal in appearance to the one you see on screen, as well as seventy of the smaller units, which will be mainly used for personnel transportation. Those are also used by the teams of robots searching the planet surface for old weapons and stocks of dangerous materials. Of course these are armed as well, though relatively less effective than the larger units." "Wow! That's some pretty amazing force we have here," Carlo Fontini was looking in awe at the screens. "but are we sure it is all up to date?" "Not sure, but our ally, if I can call it that, has reassured us that it is all of the latest technology, and should match any enemy weaponry." "How does our ally know that?" Charlie voiced his concern. "There was an attempted attack in the recent past - about sixty of our years ago - on our allies' home planet, and the enemy was repelled with only minimal casualties, mainly robots. Obviously the invaders have had enough time to make some improvements in their technology, but so did our allies." "Where are all these ships kept?" This came from Dr. Sorensen, who was nodding quietly to himself as he took in all the details. "The smaller units are all on Earth at present, their crews busy with their search, while the larger ones, all manned by robot crews, are distributed in a circle around the Earth Moon system, at a distance of about eight hundred

thousand kilometres." "What about their speed?" Dr. Sorensen wanted to know. "All ships are capable of faster than light travel, although that only works when at a sufficiently safe distance from the Sun or other mass, which is possibly just outside the Asteroid belt. Inside it, they can reach almost light speed within thirty minutes, from a stationary position." "So I think we would be well advised to have some sensors around the Asteroid belt," Continued Dr. Sorensen, "as it seems logical to assume the same for any enemy ships' capabilities." "Precisely, Dr. Sorensen. That was why I have placed a ring of sensors there, each attached to an Asteroid, which makes them quite invisible to any who approach. In total a thousand units of fairly low technology, but they should be quite sufficient to cover the entire system without any gaps." "Excellent, Maya." Dr. Sorensen cleared his throat, then looked up. "I guess we have no idea which direction any attackers would come from?" "Well, we do have some idea, but only as far as the particular race who attacked our ally is concerned. There might be others." As for this faster than light speed, Maya," Sorensen looked thoughtful as he spoke, slowly, deliberately, almost emphasizing every word. "are we quite sure that it is impossible to use it nearer the Sun? What I mean is - hmm - that perhaps someone could recklessly come in as far as Earth to surprise us..." "Well," Now it was Maya's turn to look thoughtful, which 'she', or rather her image on the large screen appeared to do, "it is not entirely impossible, but it is highly dangerous to the ship's crew. A slight miscalculation could place them inside the planet's body as they emerge from hyperspace." "So I would suggest that we bring back all the larger ships to at least as near as the Moon's orbit around Earth. Anybody crazy enough to go attacking alien races could be crazy enough to be reckless." "Okay, Dr. Sorensen, I will give the order immediately." As Maya sent out the order in coded signals, Charlie, playing with the controls on his elevated desk, managed to bring up a display of what looked like a factory, which appeared on the last screen still showing the Clavius logo. "What's that, Charlie?" Osvil asked him. "It seems to be the workshop where Maya builds her robots." Charlie quickly manipulated some control and the camera swivelled around. The far end of the assembly hall appeared, showing at least fifty almost finished units, all looking like Charlie, but without the face mask. The lack of any clothing showed

the all metal construction of the robots. "She is building an army of you, Charlie!" Exclaimed Carlo. "Not quite me, Carlo," Charlie quickly explained, "these use the same processor as Maya's other robots, so they won't be as intelligent as I am. Only their hardware is similar. They look bigger than me, too." "Well, it looks like we are fairly well equipped for defence." Dr. Sorensen remarked, then when he saw Osvil light a rollup, "Can I have one of those too, Herb?" "It's Selenis weed." Osvil pulled a fresh rollup from his tin and passed it to the engineer. "May I ask what your Dr. title stands for?" "Sure you may, it's for rock science, or in other words geology." He lit up and smiled. "You certainly know how to make a human happy."

Q. How do you tell the difference between a Computer Scientist and a normal person? A. Get them to count. The Computer Scientist is the one that starts from zero. Member's Application Form, Theodigital Society - ca 2004.

The Invasion

It happened while Osvil, Carlo Fontini, Humboldt and Dr. Sorensen were playing a game of pools in the old recreation room, while Charlie was roped in to play table tennis with Fiona. Some of the original Selenites who had come with them to the Clavius base, had already been ferried to Earth by a robot ship, but as Osvil still had some loose ends to tie up, as he referred to his work on the large computer's software, regarding the seamless functioning of its defence plans, they had decided to stay a while longer. Suddenly the alarms sounded. Charlie immediately stopped and appeared to freeze, as he exchanged messages with Maya via his wrist-watch communicator, then looked up, his voice calm and measured. "The aliens have arrived. Maya counts nearly five hundred ships, so in numbers we are more than a match for them." They all filed over to the meeting room with the large screens, where one of the screens was already showing a picture of space with a large group of bright dots in a perfectly round formation, looking like a diamond studded shield. "What you see is a telescopic camera view from ship number 617." Maya's voice came from a side screen, where her seated body appeared. She uncrossed her legs and stood up. "I am trying to decide between forming a similar shield and taking them on ship for ship, or a wedge formation to divide them and surround each cluster." "Either one could be successfu,." Dr. Sorensen volunteered, "but maybe a wedge would confuse them enough to make mistakes. Your robots won't get confused, and perhaps be more effective. Are you sure those are all of them? They could have divided their force and another five hundred could be coming along, just behind the first group." "All Asteroid sensors are checking the area. They report nothing." The image of Maya began pacing, head bowed, the camera faithfully following her slow movement. "Do those sensors look inwards as well?"

There was a pause, then Maya stopped and looked towards Sorensen. "They do now - and they did detect another group, though slightly smaller than the first. Three hundred more ships, just came out of hyperspace on our side of the Asteroid Belt." "Now we know they are there, we can just watch them, but still attack the first group with all ships. No, not all, I would bring some of them near here, maybe a hundred ships, just in case some individuals break off from the main group." "Okay, Dr. Sorensen." Maya's image nodded at the scientist. "I will position those hundred units between the Earth and the Moon." One of the rearward ships' cameras showed the home fleet, with some of the craft near enough to make out every detail. They were forming a cross of a hundred ships to a line, in fact there were four crosses, each one a short distance behind the other. Each individual ship had its exact orders, the front row of ships had to break through, then circle behind the enemy, while the rear row would veer off to attack them from this side. "This is like playing a computer game, Maya was correct in that." Dr. Sorensen grinned at Osvil, seemingly enjoying the show. "Nobody dies out there, at least not on our side, so it isn't like a real war." "We will all die, if they get through." Fiona frowned at him. "Those aliens are not robots, they will die and probably get very angry." "They don't have much of a chance." Dr. Sorensen shrugged his shoulders, showing a smile of patience. "Some of the seventy ships are on their way here from Earth, plus we have satellite defences and even local defences for each base here. Earth is equally defended. No-one will get at us. In fact, I'm sure that none will get past that huge robot fleet out there." "But some might - and what do we do then?" "There are some personnel weapons and grenades in those lockers, as far as I remember," Osvil had put a hand on her arm to calm her, then turned towards Maya, "are those still there, Maya?" "Yes, they are, Herb. In an hour you will also see fifty robot guards, they have Charlie's shape but they are armed and have personal shields." Maya had resumed her pacing and Osvil knew that it was simply a graphic animation that ran on very little processor time, while Maya was busy sorting other details. Then she brought their attention back to the moment, without the pacing being interrupted, "The view is a composite of radar, infrared and light from the Sun. Nearly in weapons range now." "So what about Selenis? There are no weapons there." Fiona objected.

"Selenis is defended by several ROMPs as well as energy shield generator units." Osvil patted her hand. "Besides, Selenis is quite well hidden, no-one is transmitting from there." She didn't reply to that, the view on the screen seemed to take all her concentration. The alien's ships were getting larger in the view, and their shapes became more visible. They looked like haystacks, or tall domes, of a dark metal colour that would be quite invisible in normal light. Their assumedly flat bottoms being the drive side, their domed side was turned towards the home fleet, with lots of protrusions pointing out towards them. Osvil tried to imagine what the actual individuals would look like, but he failed. Suddenly a wall of shimmering beams shot towards them, lighting up the ships' shields. There was a sound like a giant bell being hit, then it faded. The first row of ships opened fire and several of the aliens went up in a blinding explosion. Then all hell broke loose. Ships going in every direction, particle beams flashing between them, until suddenly the camera was cut out. It was replaced almost immediately with another, showing a slightly different point of view. Both sides were losing ships. The battle had been going for over an hour, even as the remainder of the enemy fleet was joined by the late arrivals. Then Maya reported. "We have lost less than two hundred units while the invaders have lost more than three hundred of theirs. They are good at evading. There is also a new group of three hundred ships, they had arrived behind the second group, but will take about forty or more minutes to join up with the battle." "I remember seeing some hits that were totally effective, what did you use there?" Dr. Sorensen was also pacing now, maybe to imitate Maya. "Torpedoes. As I said, the invaders evade them and we have limited supplies. Phasers take several hits to break their shields, but they can be quickly recharged." "How about sending some of the rear guard ships to re-supply the fleet with more torpedoes?" Osvil asked. "Perhaps we could try to jump there via hyperspace, just behind the first lot of new arrivals. Maybe twenty ships could wreak havoc in their lines, throwing as many torpedoes as they can." "Okay, Herb, the ships will be landing in a minute. The loading will take a few more minutes, as I can use the new guard robots for the job. The jump will need some extremely accurate calculations." "That's what I call a reckless move." Dr. Sorensen grinned at Osvil, who smiled back. "Those ships are our rear guard and a part of our last defence."

"We can stop this at the front, no need for that much rear guard." He felt as confident as he sounded, and he squeezed Fiona's hand. "Maya knows pretty well what she is doing." "Sure," Sorensen was still watching the screen, absorbed in the action there. "I do agree with you, it's an excellent element of surprise." "If you keep on like that, I will become quite jealous." Fiona quipped, her chin thrust toward Osvil. "That really would leave me in a bad situation. I don't know any other girls in Selenis," Osvil admitted. "so who would I share my breakfast with?" "Ah, now there is an idea." Humboldt suddenly moved in his chair, where he had been forgotten up to now. "I am getting hungry, anyone wants to join me in the canteen?" "What, now?" Dr. Sorensen looked at him, almost shocked. "In a few more minutes we will see the biggest show we have ever witnessed, and you want to miss it for food?" "I will go with you." Carlo Fontini stood up and stretched. "Need to move my legs a bit too." "As you know, I don't eat." Charlie spread out his hands, but remained in his seat. "I'd happily go with you, George, but this was my decision, so I have to see it through." Osvil looked at Humboldt with an apologetic smile, and shrugged his shoulders, then released Fiona's hand. "You can go too, you must be hungry as well." "I'm alright, I can stay until you go." As Humboldt and Carlo left the room, Osvil returned his gaze to the girl sitting next to him. "Thanks, Fiona, you are an angel. I will show you around London, after all this is over." "Oh, good. Can we see Madame Tussaud's?" Her eyes lit up at the idea. "Sure, and all the art galleries, the Tate, and even visit the Tower." "I wonder if the Crown Jewels are still there?" She mused. "They are pretty well guarded, behind thick, bullet proof glass, with an expensive alarm system that brings down all shutters and the guards come running." In fact there is no-one there to steal them now, he thought to himself quietly, though he didn't want to voice that. "Why are they called Beefeaters?" She was also serious now, obviously thinking the same as he did.

"Hmm, probably because they were so well paid that they could afford beef, while the rest of the servants only had chicken or lamb at best." "You are joking." She gave him a dubious smile. "No, it's absolutely true. We can look it up in their history books." "Can't you ask Maya?" She grinned at him, a challenge. "What? So you get jealous? I won't, and she is busy anyway. We will have to go there ourselves, and look at those history books." As they spoke, the battle still raged, silently, as Osvil noticed when he glanced at the screen, to see if anything had changed. Maya had very considerately lowered the audio level when she heard the group of humans discuss matters that had nothing to do with her job. "One minute to jump." Maya's voice cut into the silence. "Twenty of the invaders' units have broken off their main group and are heading towards Earth." "I am not quite sure what they are hoping to achieve. Probably just want to test our defences." Dr. Sorensen said quietly, as he resumed his pacing. "Seems rather a desperate move on their part." Osvil noted that Maya's image was seated now, her legs crossed, arms loose in her lap, then he noted that Fiona was sitting in the same position. Now who is imitating whom? He asked himself with a wistful smile. Suddenly a group of ten flashes appeared, just behind the invader's new group of ships, which were just about to join in the battle, then a few seconds later, ten of the new arrivals erupted in flashes of white light. Then another few seconds, and another ten followed. "It really works, Osvil." Dr. Sorensen had quickly turned towards him, and nodded. "I should have come up with that myself." "We can't all be perfect, not even Maya." Osvil said quietly. "They take a long time to recover from a surprise attack." Maya said. Suddenly one of the screens switched to a new view. It showed Earth filling more than half of the screen, with twenty alien ships heading towards it, glittering against the black of space. The robot ship that showed the view, was on an intercept course and rapidly catching up with them. Then it opened fire, even before the enemy got within range of the planetary satellite grid. The alien ships turned to return fire, but were still drifting towards the planet under their own momentum. As phaser beams cut between Maya's robot ships and those of the aliens, the invaders had no idea what hit them when the satellite grid began to pound them with torpedoes. Before they could recover, they were mostly wiped out in bright

explosions. Then the few remaining ships decided to make a run for it and accelerated, to head away from Earth and the new and unexpected danger. "They are deciding to make a run for it." Dr. Sorensen observed, his voice almost shaking with excitement. "Let them go, Maya, they will remember a defeat better, if some survive." "Of course, Dr. Sorensen, I don't kill for pleasure." Maya replied, her voice calm as usual. "We still have over half of our fleet, while they have lost three quarters of theirs." "Not to mention their people." Osvil remarked. "Maya, are there any of them crippled, maybe even with survivors on board?" "Yes, several of the main group. We don't always shoot to destroy, just to disable." Maya's face filled the screen now, she appeared to look almost sad, though Osvil knew that it was only for their benefit. "Okay, pull back, let them pick up their survivors." Osvil instructed her, then quickly added "Sorry, Maya, you are already doing it." As their robot ships pulled back from the scene of the battle, they watched as several of the fleeing ships made a detour towards their fallen comrades. When they were close enough, flexible tubes snaked towards the wrecked ships, then after a while, separated again. Then the stricken ships blew up, one after the other. Just as the last of them was going up in a flash, the remainder of the breakaway group rejoined their fleet. Then the entire invader fleet flashed off into hyperspace and disappeared from view. "I don't think they will come back too soon." Dr. Sorensen said with a deep sigh. "I agree with you there. They might not even know that they fought against an army of robots, instead of humans. I wonder if they even know that us humans have fought ourselves to near extinction." Then Osvil stood up, followed by Fiona. "Let's go and join the others in the canteen."